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Microsoft to Bring to Back Good Old Microsoft Bob

July 17, 2013 By Troy Rubenson 1 Comment

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Microsoft Bob, a discontinued Microsoft software product may again come to life in the near future. It was considered as the one of the major software failures from Microsoft. The software which was codenamed as Utopia brought easy to use interface to desktop operations. It was designed to be used on Windows 95 and Windows NT.

Even though the application was discontinued before Windows 98 came out in the market, the media continued to criticize the poor Bob. It even landed up as one of the worst tech products of all time on PC World.

Microsoft is going to bring back the good old Microsoft Bob as an intelligent personal assistant that will assist users in carrying out everyday computing. Microsoft Bob was launched in 1995 and it provided users with a virtual house that came with different rooms such as kitchen, living room and so on. Inside each room there were different furniture and icons for accessing different applications. The entire house could be customized by the user.

Microsoft Bob also featured different ‘assistants’ which were nothing but amazing cartoon characters that helped users to get around the virtual house. At the Microsoft Research Faculty Summit that was held on last Monday at Redmond, Washington, Bill Gates claimed that the Microsoft Bob was not good enough at that time but now he feels that the concept should be again brought to light after sophistication.

The last stable release of the Microsoft Bob was on 30^th Aug, 1995. Bill Gates said that Microsoft Bob will be reintroduced as intelligent personal agents. Gates added that the potential of Microsoft Bob is now much better than before.

When it was launched in 1995, it completely failed to impress the users. At that time people preferred to use icons and folders that were simple in appearance. Cute cartoon characters providing instructions were simply not something that interested people at that time. Hence, Bob only managed to survive for a year and then it made its way out in 1996. However, the idea did not die completely, as Clippy, the cartoon character which popped up as Office Assistant helper remained for quite some time. However, in 2003, even Clippy was pulled off.

Bill Gates assured that Microsoft Bob won’t be brought back as a cute dog helping you around in a virtual house. Instead the new sophisticated Microsoft Bob would be somewhat like Apple’s Siri and Google Now. It will remain in the tiled interface of the Windows 8 OS. It will be able to comprehend everything that the user does, predict what the user would like to do and offer relevant information.

The reemerging of Microsoft Bob makes us feel that Microsoft wants to offer a competitive personal assistant like Siri and Google Now. Both Apple and Google have succeeded well and Microsoft is only trying to do the same.

How would the new Microsoft Bob be? Will it again feature new animated characters or it would just provide users with voice assistance like Siri. Microsoft will have to do something out of the box when it offers new voice assistant software

Siri May Be the Secret Feature on Apple’s iRadio

June 10, 2013 By Troy Rubenson Leave a Comment

The WWDC 2013 event is going to be held very soon on the 10^th of June. This is going to be the event when the iOS 7 will be unveiled. Apple has managed to bag deals from well-known music companies before their music streaming service iRadio is going to be showcased at the same event. Apple is also speculated to offer Siri to stay ahead in competition from other similar services.

Already, there are many well-known music streaming services in US such as Pandora and Spotify. Even Google has released their music streaming service called All Access and now Apple joins the rat race by announcing their service called iRadio

Last couple of weeks has been quite busy for Apple in signing up agreements with popular music companies like Warner Music Group and Universal Music Group. Apple is also going to sign up a deal with Sony.

Even though Apple has been quite popular with music products like iTunes and iPod but they haven’t tried their luck at offering personalized internet radio station service or streaming music to its fans. Apple is starting late but it is going to offer what other services are not offering. We feel that the radio service will integrate well with voice-assistant Siri, iPhone and other iDevices.

If Apple unveils the iRadio at the WWDC 2013 event, the device may feature iOS 7 and Siri. At the moment Siri does not support iPhone apps of Pandora, Spotify and All Access. With Siri onboard, Apple could make it easy for people who drive to listen to their favorite radio channel. While driving you can simply ask Siri to play any song, it will do it for you.

Apple is yet to reveal much about its music streaming service. However, the iRado is going to contain features of popular services like Pandora and Spotify. You will have to choose an artist or song and the service will start playing personalized music tracks. The iRadio is going to be a free service and it will also suggest users to purchase tracks through the iTunes.

Apple has not spoken much about the iRadio yet but it is going to compete well with popular music services like Pandora and Spotify. We will have to wait and see how soon iRadio manages to achieve popularity over its rivals. However, we all are now eagerly waiting for the WWDC 2013 to take place to get new and accurate information.

Microsoft May Bring Voice Assistant Feature Like Siri to Xbox One

May 26, 2013 By Troy Rubenson Leave a Comment

The Xbox is now well-known as ‘game changer’ mainly because it not only allows you to play games but also watch TV and surf the web in your living room. The gaming console has metamorphosed into a completely new entertainment system. Rumors have it that Microsoft is going to soon introduce voice recognition and voice assistant feature like Siri to Xbox.

If Microsoft manages to introduce an intuitive voice assistant feature, it will surely be able to do what Apple has failed to achieve, voice assistant app inside living room. Sounds interesting, isn’t? The feature is called Polygon but this may not be the official name. This feature will surely allow users to do two-way communication with their Xbox One.

The Kinect sensor on Xbox One is able to recognize the room occupants through face recognition and if it finds an unfamiliar face, it informs the room that it is unable to recognize someone. It then prompts the unfamiliar face (new player) to identify himself. After the player introduces, the information is stored for future use.

Experts are of the view that Polygon is going to function more or less like iPhone’s Siri. However, the feature won’t be available when the product will be available in the more.

The Xbox Live feature allows users to share their games in order to complete tasks over the preloaded Skype app. The feature will allow users to let other player complete the game for you on a different Xbox One by pressing a single button. The feature is similar to the sharing system feature which will be seen in the PlayStation 4.

The voice assistant feature on Xbox One will make it a competitive device and it can pose serious competition the PS4 which will be will later this year. The PS4 is expected hit the market during the holiday season. Sony is also going to launch some free games exclusively for PS4 owners. Sony is going to unveil the PlayStation 4 on 10^th June and then the features of the gaming device will be known. The Xbox One is surely a promising gaming console but the PlayStation 4 will be a serious competition to the Xbox One. We have to wait until June to see whether the Sony PS4 can be of any threat to the versatile Xbox One.

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