Microsoft Agent
Microsoft Agent was a technology developed by Microsoft which employed animated characters, text-to-speech engines, and speech recognition software to enhance interaction with computer users. Thus it was an example of an embodied agent. It came preinstalled as part of Windows 98 through Windows Vista. It was not included with Windows 7 but can be downloaded from Microsoft. It was completely discontinued in Windows 8. Microsoft Agent functionality was exposed as an ActiveX control that can be used by web pages. The theory behind this software came from work on social interfaces by Clifford Nass and Byron Reeves at Stanford's Center for the Study of Language and Information. Version history Interactive character technology was first introduced in Microsoft Bob, which used an early version of Agent technology internally referred to as "Microsoft Actor." It was the code used in the initial version of the Office Assistant in Office 97. Microsoft Agent was subsequently created by Ta ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Microsoft Windows
Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for servers, and Windows IoT for embedded systems. Defunct Windows families include Windows 9x, Windows Mobile, and Windows Phone. The first version of Windows was released on November 20, 1985, as a graphical operating system shell for MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces (GUIs). Windows is the most popular desktop operating system in the world, with 75% market share , according to StatCounter. However, Windows is not the most used operating system when including both mobile and desktop OSes, due to Android's massive growth. , the most recent version of Windows is Windows 11 for consumer PCs and tablets, Windows 11 Enterprise for corporations, and Windows Server 2022 for servers. Genealogy By marketing ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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World Wide Web
The World Wide Web (WWW), commonly known as the Web, is an information system enabling documents and other web resources to be accessed over the Internet. Documents and downloadable media are made available to the network through web servers and can be accessed by programs such as web browsers. Servers and resources on the World Wide Web are identified and located through character strings called uniform resource locators (URLs). The original and still very common document type is a web page formatted in Hypertext Markup Language (HTML). This markup language supports plain text, images, embedded video and audio contents, and scripts (short programs) that implement complex user interaction. The HTML language also supports hyperlinks (embedded URLs) which provide immediate access to other web resources. Web navigation, or web surfing, is the common practice of following such hyperlinks across multiple websites. Web applications are web pages that function as application s ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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BonziBuddy
BonziBuddy ( , stylized as BonziBUDDY) was a freeware desktop virtual assistant created by Joe and Jay Bonzi. Upon a user's choice, it would share jokes and facts, manage downloads, sing songs, and talk, among other functions, as it used Microsoft Agent. BonziBuddy was described as spyware and adware, and discontinued in 2004 after the company behind it faced lawsuits regarding the software and was ordered to pay fines. Bonzi's website remained open after the discontinuation of BonziBuddy, but was shut down at the end of 2008. Design The software used Microsoft Agent technology similar to Office Assistant, and originally sported Peedy, a green parrot and one of the characters available with Microsoft Agent. Later versions of BonziBuddy in May 2000 featured its own character: Bonzi, the purple gorilla. The program also used a text-to-speech voice to interact with the user. The voice was called Sydney and taken from an old Lernout & Hauspie Microsoft Speech API 4.0 package. It is o ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Embodied Agent
In artificial intelligence, an embodied agent, also sometimes referred to as an interface agent, is an intelligent agent that interacts with the environment through a physical body within that environment. Agents that are represented graphically with a body, for example a human or a cartoon animal, are also called embodied agents, although they have only virtual, not physical, embodiment. A branch of artificial intelligence focuses on empowering such agents to interact autonomously with human beings and the environment. Mobile robots are one example of physically embodied agents; Ananova and Microsoft Agent are examples of graphically embodied agents. Embodied conversational agents are embodied agents (usually with a graphical front-end as opposed to a robotic body) that are capable of engaging in conversation with one another and with humans employing the same verbal and nonverbal means that humans do (such as gesture, facial expression, and so forth). Embodied conversational age ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Windows 7
Windows 7 is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was released to manufacturing on July 22, 2009, and became generally available on October 22, 2009. It is the successor to Windows Vista, released nearly three years earlier. It remained an operating system for use on personal computers, including home and business desktops, laptops, tablet PCs and media center PCs, and itself was replaced in November 2012 by Windows 8, the name spanning more than three years of the product. Until April 9, 2013, Windows 7 original release included updates and technical support, after which installation of Service Pack 1 was required for users to receive support and updates. Windows 7's server counterpart, Windows Server 2008 R2, was released at the same time. The last supported version of Windows based on this operating system was released on July 1, 2011, entitled Windows Embedded POSReady 7. Extended support ended on January 14, 2020, over ten years a ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Windows 2000
Windows 2000 is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft and oriented towards businesses. It was the direct successor to Windows NT 4.0, and was Software release life cycle#Release to manufacturing (RTM), released to manufacturing on December 15, 1999, and was officially released to retail on February 17, 2000. It was Microsoft's business operating system until the introduction of Windows XP Professional in 2001. Windows 2000 introduced NTFS 3.0, Encrypting File System, as well as basic and dynamic disk storage. Support for people with disabilities was improved over Windows NT 4.0 with a number of new Assistive technology, assistive technologies, and Microsoft increased support for different languages and Locale (computer software), locale information. The Windows 2000 Server family has additional features, most notably the introduction of Active Directory, which in the years following became a widely used directory service in business environmen ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Windows Me
Windows Millennium Edition, or Windows Me (marketed with the pronunciation of the pronoun "me"), is an operating system developed by Microsoft as part of its Windows 9x family of Microsoft Windows operating systems. It is the successor to Windows 98, and was released to manufacturing on June 19, 2000, and then to retail on September 14, 2000. It was Microsoft's main operating system for home users until the introduction of its successor Windows XP in October 2001. Windows Me was targeted specifically at home PC users, and included Internet Explorer 5.5 (later default was Internet Explorer 6), Windows Media Player 7 (later default was Windows Media Player 9 Series) and the new Windows Movie Maker software, which provided basic video editing and was designed to be easy to use for consumers. Microsoft also incorporated features first introduced in Windows 2000, which had been released as a business-oriented operating system seven months earlier, into the graphical user interface, s ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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ActiveX
ActiveX is a deprecated software framework created by Microsoft that adapts its earlier Component Object Model (COM) and Object Linking and Embedding (OLE) technologies for content downloaded from a network, particularly from the World Wide Web. Microsoft introduced ActiveX in 1996. In principle, ActiveX is not dependent on Microsoft Windows operating systems, but in practice, most ActiveX controls only run on Windows. Most also require the client to be running on an x86-based computer because ActiveX controls contain compiled code. ActiveX is still supported as of Windows 10 through Internet Explorer 11, while ActiveX is not supported in their default web browser Microsoft Edge (which has a different, incompatible extension system, as it is based on Google's Chromium project). ActiveX controls ActiveX was one of the major technologies used in component-based software engineering. Compared with JavaBeans, ActiveX supports more programming languages, but JavaBeans supports mor ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Mozilla Firefox
Mozilla Firefox, or simply Firefox, is a free and open-source web browser developed by the Mozilla Foundation and its subsidiary, the Mozilla Corporation. It uses the Gecko rendering engine to display web pages, which implements current and anticipated web standards. In November 2017, Firefox began incorporating new technology under the code name "Quantum" to promote parallelism and a more intuitive user interface. Firefox is available for Windows 7 and later versions, macOS, and Linux. Its unofficial ports are available for various Unix and Unix-like operating systems, including FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD, illumos, and Solaris Unix. It is also available for Android and iOS. However, as with all other iOS web browsers, the iOS version uses the WebKit layout engine instead of Gecko due to platform requirements. An optimized version is also available on the Amazon Fire TV as one of the two main browsers available with Amazon's Silk Browser. Firefox was created in 2002 under t ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Opera (web Browser)
Opera is a multi-platform web browser developed by its namesake company Opera. The browser is based on Chromium, but distinguishes itself from other Chromium-based browsers ( Chrome, Edge, etc.) through its user interface and other features. Opera was initially released on 10 April 1995, making it one of the oldest desktop web browsers still actively developed. It was commercial software for its first ten years and had its own proprietary layout engine, Presto. In 2013, it switched from the Presto engine to Chromium. Opera is available on Windows, macOS, Linux, Android, and iOS (Safari WebKit engine). There are also mobile versions called Opera Mobile and Opera Mini. Opera users also have access to Opera News, a news app based on an AI platform. The company released a gaming-oriented version of the browser, Opera GX, in 2019, and a blockchain-focused Opera Crypto Browser into public beta in January 2022. History In 1994, Jon Stephenson von Tetzchner and Geir Ivarsøy st ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Internet Explorer
Internet Explorer (formerly Microsoft Internet Explorer and Windows Internet Explorer, commonly abbreviated IE or MSIE) is a series of graphical user interface, graphical web browsers developed by Microsoft which was used in the Microsoft Windows, Windows line of operating systems (in Windows 11, Windows Server Insider Build 22463 and Windows Server Insider Build 25110, it is replaced by the Chromium (web browser), Chromium version of Microsoft Edge). Starting in 1995, It was first released as part of the add-on package Microsoft Plus!, Plus! for Windows 95 that year. Later versions were available as free downloads, or in-service packs, and included in the original equipment manufacturer (OEM) service releases of Windows 95 and later versions of Windows. Microsoft spent over per year on Internet Explorer in the late 1990s, with over 1,000 people involved in the project by 1999. New feature development for the browser was discontinued in 2016 in favor of new browser Microsoft Ed ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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VBScript
VBScript (''"Microsoft Visual Basic Scripting Edition"'') is an Active Scripting language developed by Microsoft that is modeled on Visual Basic. It allows Microsoft Windows system administrators to generate powerful tools for managing computers without error handling and with subroutines and other advanced programming constructs. It can give the user complete control over many aspects of their computing environment. VBScript uses the Component Object Model to access elements of the environment within which it is running; for example, the FileSystemObject (FSO) is used to create, read, update and delete files. VBScript has been installed by default in every desktop release of Microsoft Windows since Windows 98; in Windows Server since Windows NT 4.0 Option Pack; and optionally with Windows CE (depending on the device it is installed on). A VBScript script must be executed within a host environment, of which there are several provided with Microsoft Windows, including: Windows ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |