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Building Intelligent .NET Applications 213

Posted by samzenpus from the build-a-better-skynet dept.
Scott Forsyth writes "'Building Intelligent .NET Applications' is an excellent primer book into the world of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in the business world, specifically related to Microsoft technologies. It is an introduction to the world of Artificial Intelligence (AI) for .NET programmers. It is the first book I have seen that shows professional .NET developers how to incorporate AI into their daily programming. In this accessible guide, developers learn how to enhance new and existing .NET applications with intelligent agents, data mining, rule-based systems, and speech processing." Read the rest of Scott's review.
Building Intelligent .NET Applications
author Sara Morgan Rea
pages 269
publisher Addison Wesley
rating
reviewer Scott Forsyth
ISBN 0-321-24626-8
summary An excellent primer book into the world of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in the business world, specifically related to Microsoft technologies.


Sara dives quite deep into four different branches of the vast world of AI with a great balance of conceptual theory, code samples and real world scenarios. She leads the reader though the complete process of obtaining the technologies to full implication with complete code. Both Visual Basic.Net and C# can be downloaded online while the book gives all examples in Visual Basic.Net.

Sara explores four of the most popular AI technologies by building real-world sample applications that readers can use as the basis for their own applications. Some of the more interesting portions include; Applications that talk-critical for companies seeking to automate their call centers, Speech-enabled mobile applications, Multimodal speech applications, Data-mining predictions, which uncover trends and patterns in large quantities of data, Rule-based programming for applications that can be more reactive to their environments, Multiple software agents that are able to keep remote users up to date and sample applications for Windows and the Web.

The book starts out with a one chapter overview called "Instruction" which is exactly that. It introduces the reader to Business Artificial Intelligence and lays the groundwork for the rest of the book. Immediately in chapter two the book dives into Microsoft Speech Server which is the first of four main technologies that are covered in this book. Microsoft Speech Server is covered until Chapter 5 when the book dives into Data-Mining predictions. Chapter 7 gets into Rule-based systems and Chapter 8 into building Agents.

Chapter 9 finishes off the book with an excellent overview of Artificial Intelligence. In fact, for an overview of AI and Microsoft's investment into it now and in the near future, the final chapter of the book was my favorite. Sara painted an exciting picture of what is in store, as well as opening my eyes to things that exist already. AI isn't a thing of the distant future; in fact there is an exciting array of mature technologies in use and available today.

Personally I felt that Chapter 9 would have made a better introduction chapter. I didn't feel that Artificial Intelligent or Business AI was covered in much depth in the first chapter of the book. By the time chapter 2 dove in deep into the first branch of the four topics, I still had some unanswered overview questions in my mind. After reading Chapter 9 though, the need I felt for more general information was met.

Now with Microsoft Speech server, applications that can talk and interact intelligently with a user is not only possible, it's relatively easy and affordable, even for the small business. Developers can create powerful, intelligent applications that are specific to their business. You can create fully database-driven talking applications that understand speech, talk back (not like a rebellious 15-year-old) and respond differently to each unique situation. This can be used for a telephone application, someone sitting in front of a dumb terminal with audio capability or for a fully configured computer application. Dream big, the options are endless, the solutions are within reach.

Running reports against data has been common for decades, but consider intelligent agents that will dig, analyze, determine a new direction to dig by itself, and return relevant patterns and trends in the data that were never discovered before. Sara covers this very topic with theory, code examples, scenarios and clear and precise explanations.

Agents that self perpetuate, learn their new environment and respond accordingly are the way of the future. The most obvious and painfully in-your-face examples are malicious worms and spyware applications. Worms lodge themselves in an environment, take advantage of their new home by finding important information like a list of emails addresses, and then they spread automatically, continuing this vicious cycle. Spyware agents also install themselves in an environment and start interacting with it to get information to send back to their creator. Now, consider the endless possibilities where Agents can be used for good, and are in use today. The author covers this very topic.

I wouldn't say this book is a general overview of Business Intelligent Design, but rather a specific look at four major technologies and a few minor technologies. The Microsoft products covered are Microsoft Visual Studio.Net, Microsoft Speech Server and SASDK, Microsoft SQL Server, Online Analytical Processing (OLAP), BizTalk Server, Microsoft Agent, Background Intelligent Transfer Service (BITS) and I'm sure a couple other smaller technologies that I didn't list. In addition to these, Sara briefly covers SQL Server 2005, Analysis Services 2005, and Longhorn with Avalon, Indigo, and WinFS.

One of the characteristics of a good technical book is making the complex subjects sound simple. The author has done a tremendous job of that in this book. The range of topics that she covers at first glance seems complex, but at no point does she leave the reader overwhelmed. At the same time she doesn't over explain or drag on needlessly.

This book is about the IA (Intelligent Applications) part of AI (Artificial Intelligence). It focuses on Microsoft solutions for Speech solutions, Agents, Data Mining and Rule-Based Systems, and does a great job of it."

You can purchase Building Intelligent .NET Applications from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
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Building Intelligent .NET Applications

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  • Oh, Good Lord... (Score:4, Funny)

    by errxn ( 108621 ) on Wednesday February 08, 2006 @03:32PM (#14671853) Homepage Journal
    ...If this topic isn't a trollfest waiting to happen, I don't know what is.
    • I'm just thankful the submitter used the word "Building" instead of "Designing".

      .NET?! Intelligent Design?! Slashbot overload!!

    • Here is an example troll response -->

      How to design intelligent .NET applications by Slashdot
      Step #1: Install GNU/Linux from distro of choice (spawn 50 more troll replies to this about why a different distro would work better... also 100 or so replies about *BSD or Mac OSX would be better)
      Step #2: Install Apache webserver -- Strangely there is a lot of consensus on this one.
      Step #3: Install MySql or DB of choice (again spawn 37 more troll replies to this about why a different database would work better...
  • It is the first book I have seen that shows professional .NET developers how to incorporate A[rtifical]I[ntelligence] into their daily programming.

    I think they should start with genuinely intelligent programming, and move on from there.
    • Microsoft has long been wanting to push AI in their products. That's exactly what Microsoft Bob was supposed to be, remember?

      I think a more likely reaction is: do users even want intelligence? As for me, I value "predictability" more than "intelligence." If I click the "Tools" menu in Outlook, I sure want to see "Options" listed below there, even if I haven't used it before. All this crap they've put in applications like Office to "hide" features I haven't used recently makes the menus far harder for

      • If I click the "Tools" menu in Outlook, I sure want to see "Options" listed below there
        Since when are Options considered Tools? I've never understood that GUI metaphor. It's almost like d'n'd'ing a CD-ROM onto the trashbin in OS X.
        • Computer terminology is rife with this kind of stuff. Look at "Cut" and "Copy." "Copy" copies it to the clipboard. "Cut" cuts it. And copies it to the clipboard. What? And I suppose "Paste", logically, removes it from the clipboard? Nope, it leaves it there. Oooooo Kaaaaay.....

          How about RAM vs. ROM? ROM is RAM, it's just read-only RAM. It's RO-RAM. How about my hard drive? Yep, that's RAM too. It's simply persistent RAM, as opposed to the volatile RAM that lives in sticks on your motherboard.
          • 'Cut' makes sense, when you cut something out of a paper you leave a hole, it is missing. 'Paste' is about the only thing that doesn't make sense to me when used with 'Copy', but it'd be silly to have a seperate endpoint function for both because they would rarely be used at the same time.

            That said, perhaps "Copy here" or "Move here" is what should appear in the menus, which is exactlywhat comes up when you drag and drop a file in Windows using the right mouse button.

            When you develop an application you ha
        • It's not even an issue of "logical" hierarchy. It's one of "repeatability." Once I have learned that "Tools/Options" is where I go to change menu settings in Outlook, I expect "Tools/Options" to be there the next time I need to change menu settings. With the whole "auto-hide" stuff, if the Options item goes unclicked for a month or two, it will hide itself.

          In six months I need to change menu settings again, so I vaguely recall "Tools/Options." I click "Tools", but now there is no "Options" choice. M

      • I agree completely. Everytime my computer tries to think it's smarter than me, it ends up making it harder to use. This happens with autocorrect too. Often it will correct something, and make it impossible (or at least very hard) to put it back to what I actually wanted. In windows XP, it's impossible to find most of the settings I want since they messed up the control panel, and now many options aren't even there. Hiding things from the user isn't the way to make computers easier to use.
        • Useful info: Ctrl-Z will undo autocorrects. Maybe this was obvious to others, but I was delighted to discover this recently. No more fighting with the autocorrector trying to male it leave my text alone in an app where I don't know how to turn it off. Of course, you might wear out your 'Z' key, but it's better than no work-around.

      • Why can't software be predictably intelligent? Most "intelligent" functions are simply what a human expects to happen based on certain inputs.
      • My God, I think you just typed "Microsoft Bob" with a straight face!

  • Turing Test Time (Score:1, Interesting)

    by slashbob22 ( 918040 )
    A turing test will need to be completed of course. Please compare with a control sample. [twinkiesproject.com].

  • WTF, over? (Score:4, Funny)

    by Tackhead ( 54550 ) on Wednesday February 08, 2006 @03:38PM (#14671912)
    > It is the first book I have seen that shows professional .NET developers how to incorporate AI into their daily programming.

    Because as we all know, AI isn't about theory, it's about implementation.

    For my next trick, I'll write a book that shows professional .NET developers how to incorporate sorting technology into their daily programming.

    Chapter 1: The Bubble Sort
    Chapter 2: The Insertion Sort
    ...
    Chapter nlog(n): Why Coding It In .NET Still Ain't Making It Any Faster Or Better

    • Re:WTF, over? (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Anml4ixoye ( 264762 )
      The thing is, it shows you how to do it using Speech server and other APIs. With Bubble sorts and the such, you can learn from the algorithms. With this, you can learn that next version all of your stuff is going to break.

      I enjoyed the book, but it left me wishing they would have split it into four and acutally gone into depth with them. I felt it was a very shallow representation of the capabilities of the technologies, and not as much of a theory book as I would have liked.
    • I don't think that it is the .Net part that is important. The most interesting is the "business" part. To see what is the state of the art, not in the laboratory, but in the IT business. If I were to read that book, I won't anticipate to learn new algorithms but maybe to discover that there is a free speech recognition SDK downloadable on microsoft.com (which is true, you can even play Age Of Empires with it)

  • I'm a bit mystified here... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Da_Biz ( 267075 ) on Wednesday February 08, 2006 @03:38PM (#14671914)
    I work as a business systems analyst, and I'm curious: how exactly does the data mining functionality described here compare with what would be available using a J2EE/Websphere environment?

    Did M$ create some libraries specifically to support AI-esque functions, or is this book specifically about how to use .Net to support AI initiatives?

  • Intelligent .Net Applications? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 08, 2006 @03:38PM (#14671915)
    What's next? Writing easy-to-read Perl programs?
  • Come on now! You can't possibly bait the entire /. community like this with a book review about AI and .NET and not include the score you gave the book! That's just not fair! We need more reasons to flame, troll, and insult this article!
  • This can be used for a telephone application, someone sitting in front of a dumb terminal with audio capability or for a fully configured computer application. Dream big, the options are endless, the solutions are within reach.

    Computer: Sir, the whole system has crashed. How should I proceed?

    Admin: That's okay, just fix it and reboot.

    Computer: But I don't know how to fix it.

    Admin: Did Big Blue 'not know how'? Did The WOPR ever fail us? Did HAL9000 ever need instructions? JUST FIX IT

  • I thought there might actually be some discussion (Score:5, Insightful)

    by RingDev ( 879105 ) on Wednesday February 08, 2006 @03:52PM (#14672039) Homepage Journal
    Being a .Net developer I was hoping for some decent conversation about this book and different ideas about design.

    Unfortunately, this is /. so all that is here is FUD and trolls.

    If someone would actually enjoy a conversation about data abstraction, business application development, and advanced theory in .Net development, I'd be all for it though!

    -Rick
    • It's not everyone on Slashdot, only the trolls who stick their noses up at tools they likely haven't ever tried before. I've seen the comments that say .NET is inferior or is a "toy language" because it's generally simple to put apps together quickly, as if that's some sort of negative thing. That sort of spin doesn't come from rational folks, so don't mind it.

      Another poster did have a good point, though, and most of what you were talking about (data abstraction and advanced theory) along with the the gen

      • Re:I thought there might actually be some discussi (Score:5, Informative)

        by CastrTroy ( 595695 ) on Wednesday February 08, 2006 @04:49PM (#14672553)
        The only problem that I have with .Net, and mostly just VS.Net, is that it tries to do everything for you, by holding your hand, and letting you drag and drop to do everything. But, then, it doesn't hold your hand enough, and every text box ends up with a name like textbox1, or something like that. So, instead you have to remember each of the properties that you have to change for each control so that variables are named correctly, and all the proper default values are filled in. Then if all someone knows how to do is drag and drop, which is a good portion of .Net programmers, then they have no idea what to do when something goes wrong. I think that .Net is a great platform, which is very powerful when you write the code yourself. But I think that Microsoft trying to turn programming into something that anybody can do is a big mistake. Programming robust,reliable, scalable systems requires knowledge that not everybody has. I say, leave the programming up to the people that know how, and keep everyone else far, far away.
        • It's all in how you use it. You don't necessarily have to use those features. Most of them are junk anyway. Especially the form designer for web pages, it produces worthless garbage code(if you call html code, but that's another topic).

          I have worked in both .net and Java using VS and JBuilder. The thing that I like about Java is that it forces you to write cleaner code at some points. Such as classes in a namespace being in separate files whereas in .net you can put all of your classes in one file a

        • Re:I thought there might actually be some discussi (Score:4, Informative)

          by jchenx ( 267053 ) on Wednesday February 08, 2006 @05:15PM (#14672767) Journal
          What you're describing, with the filling in of default values, is not something new with .NET. I saw it first-hand with earlier versions of VB.

          On that note, I can agree that automatically filling in objects with "textbox1" can be dangerous. I worked on a VB project with someone who wasn't a programmer and ran across these default names everywhere. When I had to re-write the code, it was difficult to read. But you know what? Bad coders are going to do bad things, no matter the language or development environment provides. If it wasn't filled in as "textbox1", he would have renamed it after some letter of the alphabet. I'll take "textbox1" over "x" anyday. (And sure enough, any variable that wasn't a UI object was named after letters in the alphabet)

          I've worked a lot with UI development in both Java (Swing) and C#. I can definately say that the .NET Framework makes things a lot easier. Yes, there's the added danger of "Joe User" now thinking that they're a super programmer, but does that mean language designers are supposed to make it languages difficult to use? That's just absurd. In any case, you could very well have the same thing in a non-.NET language as well (and I'm pretty sure there were some Java IDEs that did something very similar to what VS.NET does, in terms of UI drag-and-drop)

          If you think .NET is all about Microsoft trying to bring programming to the masses, I think you need to re-examine what it is about. You can easily argue the same thing with Java, or any other managed language. My take on the goals of these languages is to make development BETTER. "Easier" is a part of it, thanks to the elimination of "difficult-to-comprehend" concepts like pointers, and the addition of automatic garbage collection. Good programmers (and I'd like to think I'm one), could live forever in the C/C++ world, but having the benefits in .NET and Java are just too attractive. I'd rather worry about more difficult problems like concurrency, than worrying (as much) about memory management, pointer arithmetic, etc.

          • What they should do, is at least comes up with a dialog, with all the usually properties that one would change. You wouldn't have to change them if you wanted to, but you could, and they'd all be in one place. Instead of having to remember which ones to change, I could just change the most common ones, which almost always need to be changed. I know you're right, You can write bad code in any language, and the IDE can't really do much to stop you. But if they're going to insist on making tools that pret
            • But if they're going to insist on making tools that pretend that it's possible for people who don't know how to code, to write code, then they could at least hold their hand a little bit more, and get them to write at least acceptable code.

              Well, that's the part that I disagree with. I don't think the VS team is intentionally trying to make a product to allow people who don't know how to code, to write code. If that's what you're seeing a lot of, then I don't know for sure why that's the case. Maybe novices
            • > What they should do, is at least comes up with a dialog, with all the usually properties that one would change.

              That dialog is always visible in the IDE window.

              What they really should do is have the compiler spit out warnings about "TextBox1" and the like.

        • Re:I thought there might actually be some discussi (Score:5, Insightful)

          by Rew190 ( 138940 ) on Wednesday February 08, 2006 @05:37PM (#14672930)
          But, then, it doesn't hold your hand enough, and every text box ends up with a name like textbox1, or something like that. So, instead you have to remember each of the properties that you have to change for each control so that variables are named correctly, and all the proper default values are filled in.

          Well, the "textbox1" thing is annyoing (and I believe it's fixed in 2005), that generally is the only property I have to change on a regular basis. The name of the control too, but I don't think you can really hold that against VS. If you're doing anything else (like making the font bold for the textbox), you can simply copy the control with the bold property set, paste it, then change its name. It will retain the Bold setting.

          Then if all someone knows how to do is drag and drop, which is a good portion of .Net programmers...

          I'm sorry, but these programmers you're talking about are either not actually programmers or you're greatly exhaggerating the ability to make useful applications using only drag and drop. I would also say that there are countless programs that do nearly the exact same thing for Java stuff, but just like .NET, the dragging and dropping is relegated to UI design.

          ... then they have no idea what to do when something goes wrong.

          You're dealing with bad programmers then. There is nothing unique to .NET about this. If these programmers can't handle the simple code that VS generates, they should go back to school. Please don't be deluded enough to think this is is the language's fault, though.

          But I think that Microsoft trying to turn programming into something that anybody can do is a big mistake. Programming robust,reliable, scalable systems requires knowledge that not everybody has. I say, leave the programming up to the people that know how, and keep everyone else far, far away.

          if you only know how to drag and drop, you can put together a form, put some pretty widgets on it that do nothing when played with, and run it. That's it. The most complex thing that I can think of that VS does for you is create typed datasets. You can map some of the values in them to controls, but only if you are competent enough to populate the dataset and can either write a for-loop or understand databinding. You can not, even remotely, come close to being able to put together a semi-useful application without knowing how to code.

          Then again, and as I said before, the ability to NOT have to code shouldn't be something that's snorted at. VS doesn't generate anything past mundane code that would simply eat up your time. i doubt you could even call writing what it generates as "programming."

          It should also be noted that what you've brought up (and that you rightly noted) are all Visual Studio "problems." If anyone wants to argue against the merits of .NET, then do so against .NET and not its IDE.

          You might want to give it another chance if you're doing Windows apps and don't need portability. I'm a Java-first kinda guy, but when I do a C# application it's a great and generally refreshing switch-up, not an excercise in pain as others on /. would have you believe.
          • I guess my problem is with the career schools that are churning out .Net developers who couldn't code to save their life. They teach them how to drag and drop controls, write loops, conditionals, functions, and maybe the basics of creating a class, and that's it. Then these people think they are programmers. They know how to code a little bit, but don't really understand completely what's going on. For an example of what i'm talking about, take a look at this course on .net [williscollege.com] and tell me if you think it w

            • I guess my problem is with the career schools that are churning out .Net developers who couldn't code to save their life. They teach them how to drag and drop controls, write loops, conditionals, functions, and maybe the basics of creating a class, and that's it. Then these people think they are programmers.

              I still don't understand why this bothers you. It only bothers me to the extent that they are misleading their students about their job prospects. It seems to me that most programming jobs consist of

        • VS.NET does try to do as much as possible for you so that you don't go crazy performing the mind-numbing, repetitive tasks that are part of most development jobs. However, I don't think that this is an excuse to not understand what is really happening behind the scenes when you use VS. I don't think Microsoft feels this way either.

          Programming IS hard and requires a lot of knowledge. I personally think that all .NET developers should start by learning how to build applications with a text editor and the c
        • I find it much easier to design an interface using the click-and-drag method rather than the code-by-hand-then-reload-the-page-to-see-what-it-l ooks-like method. After I get what I want I go through and change all my properties, then I start putting in the code behind the page elements.

          I'm sure you enjoy compiling everytime you need to make a visual change just to test it, I can assure you that I don't.
        • The only problem that I have with .Net, and mostly just VS.Net, is that it tries to do everything for you, by holding your hand, and letting you drag and drop to do everything. But, then, it doesn't hold your hand enough, and every text box ends up with a name like textbox1, or something like that.

          I am curious, do you have the same problem with eclipse?

          Then if all someone knows how to do is drag and drop, which is a good portion of .Net programmers...

          Ok, since we are gonna pull out unqualified statements, a
    • I agree. I'd like to know more about what technologies were used for the "rule-based" AI. I guess, I'd assume they are using BizTalk? It would have been interesting to hear a bit more about it.

    • OK, I'll feed the parent poster and hope he's not a troll. :)

      I will concede that .NET is a great improvement over previous Microsoft development tools, and probably the best way to write rich-client Windows applications. The new 2.0 framework and VS.NET 2005 are quite improved over even their immediate predecessors.

      Having said this, however, using the .NET still locks you into the Microsoft platform and Microsoft's development methodologies, both of which change constantly. As these change, perfectly

      • "Having said this, however, using the .NET still locks you into the Microsoft platform and Microsoft's development methodologies,"

        Platform, yes. (Although there is mono) Methodologies? no. MS has 'best practices' and templates, but you can code in any way you want. Yes, .Net is designed for Object Oriented development methodologies, and MS back them. But you can still write sequential code with GoTo statements if you really want.

        "both of which change constantly. As these change, perfectly good code becomes
    • If someone would actually enjoy a conversation about data abstraction, business application development, and advanced theory in .Net development, I'd be all for it though!

      Shouldn't it be enough to have conversations about data abstraction, business application development, and advanced theory by themselves? Why narrow the scope by focusing specifically on .Net?

    • in the book.

      Speech recognition might be marginally described as a technique for intelligent interface. Rule based programming is often used in AI systems. But the vast majority of the topics have NOTHING to do the
      field of AI. If one adverise falsely, one should expect to get flaks...

  • I wonder if Intelligent .NET applications can... (Score:3, Funny)

    by billyjoeray ( 65862 ) on Wednesday February 08, 2006 @03:57PM (#14672094)
    .. detect dupes [slashdot.org]?

    Seriously, do we really need 2 reviews of the same book? Especially on the front page?
    • I thought I was the only one that knew this was a dupe... so now we have article dupes and book review dupes. I can gather two things from this: the editors have been smoking too much pot and they don't read the news on their own site.

      Go figure

    • It's astroturfing marketers. The marketers repeatedly submit articles and hope some will get through.

      The editors aren't robots, they will make mistakes, this submission flood give them a false view of what's interesting and worthwhile, and it's statistically inevitable that repeats like this will happen. Many of the articles on slashdot these days are created by marketers trying to steal people's time for their own benefit and nobody else's.

      ---

      Marketing talk is not just cheap, it has negative value.

  • IA ***NOT*** AI (Score:3, Insightful)

    by molarmass192 ( 608071 ) on Wednesday February 08, 2006 @04:06PM (#14672178) Homepage Journal
    Nice misleading name for a book title. This is about adding shiney bells and whistles to .NET apps, not integrating artificial intelligence into .NET apps. Somebody wake me up when Building Self-Aware .NET Applications gets published.

    • Re:IA ***NOT*** AI (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Valar ( 167606 )
      1) Artificial Intelligence, not Artificial Conciousness
      2) Nobody said hard AI

      There are a lot of processes that are forms of artificial intelligence, without being equivalent to a human mind. While artificial conciousness is something like the holy grail of hard AI research, there is also a tremendous body of knowledge on 'practical AI'.

  • Book Already Reviewed on Slashdot, Not That Great (Score:5, Informative)

    by Omega1045 ( 584264 ) on Wednesday February 08, 2006 @04:10PM (#14672209)
    This exact book was reviewed a couple of months ago on Slashdot. Based on the strength of that review I went out and purchased this book. I was really unimpressed with it. It is much less a primer on how to program "AI" types of apps with .NET, and much more a manual of how to use Microsoft applications like their speech services and data mining. I do .NET for a living, which is to say that I am probably not an expert but am proficient. This book was not really aimed at .NET programming. It was aimed at "look at these cool MS apps" and "here is how to right click to enable data cubes". This book was really sub-par compared to many of the other tech books I have purchased in general. This is not to troll or to be flamebait; IMHO this book just is not very good and I have to wonder why it keeps being posted here.

  • So when the first .Net AI program goes live... (Score:4, Funny)

    by llamalicious ( 448215 ) on Wednesday February 08, 2006 @04:19PM (#14672286) Journal
    Is its first sentient action to rewrite itself in another language?

  • Alternate title (Score:4, Funny)

    by ENOENT ( 25325 ) on Wednesday February 08, 2006 @04:28PM (#14672370) Homepage Journal
    "An Introduction to the SKY.NET API"

    Hasta la vista, baby.

  • I read that book in August (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    From what I remember, the book was nothing more than PR for a few libraries (such as a speech API only available in web projects) accessible from .Net. There was nothing insightful about AI for anyone with a CS background.

  • A linux fan says... (Score:3, Funny)

    by JustNiz ( 692889 ) on Wednesday February 08, 2006 @05:16PM (#14672774)
    >> Intelligence in the business world, related to Microsoft Technologies

    Boy, I bet thats a small book.

  • A Futile attempt (Score:3, Funny)

    by roman_mir ( 125474 ) on Wednesday February 08, 2006 @05:18PM (#14672789) Homepage Journal
    Obviously this cannot be done, any real AI built in .NET will soon realize that IT IS built in .NET and will commit a virtual suicide.

  • There seems to be so much desire to get speech recognition working properly.

    For many applications I think we could actually use a Wizard of Oz machine - that is, a person who is actually listening to the verbal responses but responds using canned or machine generated utterances. The WOZ operator is actually some painfully underpaid schmoe in a foreign (third world) country who knows American english but never has to actually speak it.

    (Most people I know who have dealt with outsourced support complain that

    • People from Alabama may absurdly drawl out certain vowels but they don't murder the language in the way that only a non-native speaker can. Have you been to a Stop-n-Go lately? Sheesh.

      We employ computers instead of people because we are short-sighted nitwits with no comprehension of anything other than a simple number that constitutes the bottom line. A computer will not do anything that is above and beyond its call of duty, yet people do this everyday. Too bad we're too "expensive".
  • Sounds like a dupe to me.. Perhaps they need to use some of that 'intelligence' from the book.. build a 'dupe scanner'.
  • Why do AI in .NET when you can do it in the language designed specifically for AI in the first place [gigamonkeys.com]?

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