The Secret Origins of Microsoft Office's Clippy 263
Harry writes "Most folks think that Microsoft Office's Clippy, Microsoft Bob, and Windows XP's Search Assistant dog were perverse jokes — but a dozen years' worth of patent filings shows that Microsoft took the concept of animated software 'helpers' really, really seriously, even long after everyone else realized it was a bad idea. And the drawings those patents contain are weirdly fascinating." The article, a slide show really, spreads over 15 pages.
Re:The Weirding Way (Score:2, Funny)
...The Aristocrats... Ba-dum-dum...
WAT (Score:5, Funny)
Who cares where Clippy is from. I just want it to die.
Re:WAT (Score:5, Funny)
Re:The Weirding Way (Score:5, Funny)
Whatever happened to just yelling "first post?"
Teddy bears: priceless! (Score:5, Funny)
Page 7 of TFA interests me (Score:5, Funny)
"Modulating the Behavior of an Animated Character to Reflect Beliefs Inferred About a Userâ(TM)s Desire for Automated Services"
I think if they'd put this into practice I might have finally gotten to see Clippy take a lot of something high calibre to the face.
Re:The Weirding Way (Score:1, Funny)
Re:The Weirding Way (Score:5, Funny)
I just realized what that post is supposed to be -- it's like a "mental DNS" attack to fark up the rest of the discussion.
Probably a rogue Microsoft patent attorney!
Re:The unholy trinity (Score:5, Funny)
And 'Bob' is 'boB' backwards. Eerie!
Clippy says... (Score:5, Funny)
It looks like you're trying to create a slideshow about me. Would you like to...
Last page - India (Score:2, Funny)
It is now appearant that Microsoft and Dell are teaming up, not only to outsource tech support to India, but to hire Indian tech support that cant even read!
I had clippy really help me once. (Score:5, Funny)
The origin of Clippy (Score:2, Funny)
Clippy was Melinda Gates' idea. Hence the emphasis on making it work.
A Microsoft PM once told me Clippy saved money (Score:5, Funny)
Allegedly, Clippy annoyed people into looking in the help files to figure out how to turn him off. That led them to discover that the help file actually was helpful. This reduced the give-away service calls by some measured percent.
Probably not Clippy's intended purpose, but there you go. :)
Missing... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Also Rans (Score:3, Funny)
There is no way that George Lucas has had a horde of interns and patent attorneys working for the past two decades on Jar Jar Binks.
Clearly the result of... (Score:3, Funny)
...an employee bonus program based on the number of patent filings.
whipped (Score:5, Funny)
Re:WAT (Score:3, Funny)
Re:The unholy trinity (Score:4, Funny)
upside down: pop
backwards and upside down: qoq
transpose:
b
o
b
Re:My son is scared at night because of Clippy (Score:2, Funny)
My 5 year old son is scared at night because Clippy is under the bed.
True story, he told me.
Re:WAT (Score:3, Funny)
It doesn't matter that he's dead, it's too late. The damage is already done. Our minds will never heal from the scars Clippy inflicted. I think the only way to be sure he stays dead is to annihilate all living memory of him. We must nuke /. from orbit for the good of all humanity, and whatever poor souls discover a functioning computer long after we're gone. It's the only way to be sure.