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jas [soylentnews.org] writes:

Microsoft Office users in the 1990s likely have less-than-kind memories of "Clippit," also known as "Clippy," one of the assistants introduced in Microsoft Office 1997. The assistant concept was the result of a "tragic misunderstanding of a truly profound bit of scientific research" into how humans interact with computers, prompting Microsoft to attempt anthropomorphizing the experience of computing, to prevent users from-among other things-reacting violently by hitting a computer when it does not perform as expected.

Now, the Microsoft Office team has revived Clippy as an app to provide animated Clippy stickers in chats in Microsoft Teams, the Slack competitor bundled with Microsoft Office 365. Microsoft Teams absorbed Microsoft's previous workplace collaboration software, Skype for Business, in 2017. Skype for Business was introduced in 2015 as a rebranded version of Lync, which was introduced in 2010 as a rebranded Office Communicator.

https://www.techrepublic.com/article/microsoft-reanimates-corpse-of-maligned-office-assistant-clippy-to-help-teams-compete-with-slack/ [techrepublic.com]

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