Microsoft hasn’t always done the best job with using familiarity to make software more helpful. Clippy, the animated paper clip assistant in Microsoft Office, was designed to keep track of what you were doing, and then offer to help you out with the software’s rough spots. But most people found the feature annoying rather than useful and asked Clippy to put himself back in the drawer.
Microsoft ( MSFT – news – people ) is trying again with the approach, but in an entirely new context–the next version of Windows. That software, which will presumably be called Windows 8, hasn’t yet been officially announced by Microsoft, since Windows 7 was only released in October and can be expected to have a year or two of sales ahead of it before a replacement is named.
But some of its features are being described by tech sites on the Web. Chief among them is using facial recognition software to notice whether you are in front of your computer or not, and then put the machine to sleep, or wake it up, accordingly. Microsoft researchers have been working on various forms of image recognition software for many years. For such a feature to work, there would need to be some sort of Webcam connected to the machine, but virtually all laptops and most desktops these days are so equipped.
Other features in the new Windows reportedly will include the ability to transmit video wirelessly to a television set, a feature that would require new hardware most people don’t already have, especially on their TV sets. And there is talk that the user interface in the new Windows will use 3-D graphics, though similar predictions have been made about Windows before without coming true.
It’s still much too early to know what Windows 8 will look like, and obviously too soon to be able to predict if Microsoft can add enough functionality to the software to get people in an age of iPads and smartphone excited again about traditional desktops and laptops.
Source:-http://www.forbes.com/2010/06/28/microsoft-software-internet-technology-windows8.html?boxes=Homepagechannels
