European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - January 10, 1995, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Page 10 r the stars and stripes computers tuesday january 10, 1995 its Bob your Little Helper software interface designed to make computing easier for novices by Elizabeth Corcoran Washington Post Las vegas a Microsoft corp. Showed off its lighthearted Side saturday when chairman Bill Gates introduced his newest product a computer software package called Bob. For the company that made hundreds of millions of dollars by Selling software based on often confusing character symbols Microsoft Bob is a Radical change. Bob is a software interface designed to make it easy for novices to perform eight common tasks on their personal computers including letter writing electronic mail scheduling and Bill paying without having to read an instruction manual. A a there a no reason Why people have to be a intimidated by software at All said Karen Fries one of bobs key designers. Even Gates who confesses to mostly using electronic mail and Complex spread Sheet programs seemed to agree. Most people relate Best to computers when a Friend sits Down next to them and shows them All the tricks Gates said during a presentation at the annual consumer electronics show. Bob can be a kind of electronic buddy he said. A a that a Why we Call this next generation of software the social interface Quot he said. Gates later said in an interview that 12 major projects under development at Microsoft include similar social interface elements. Bob did not begin As a strategic Microsoft plan. For Fries who sat in the first Row or the audience watching Gates presentation the weekend event marked the culmination of three years of grueling work. The project began when Fries and project manager Barry Linnett finished another Microsoft product id h i in Lif n n i Rte my v-1 a i a aah a am m am called publisher which boasted the company a first built i asks. F. _ greeting card a wizard might offer up the   wizards Are special routines built into programs that help people accomplish tasks. For instance if someone is trying to design a and formatting tools used in most cards even before Charles receives a Royal earful London apr Prince Charles has done More damage to the monarchy than any other member of the Royal family according to a poll published monday. The poll for the guardian newspaper also found that two thirds of respondents were opposed to royals having relationships outside marriage As Charles has. Admitted doing. Asked who had most damaged the monarchy 51 percent named Charles Twenty percent picked a Fergie Quot the Duchess of York and 14 percent named Charles estranged wife Diana the Princess of Wales sixty six percent said the Royal family should set a moral example by not having relationships outside marriage. Charles publicly admitted last year that he had an affair after his marriage had broken Down. However 63 percent thought that Charles should still become King even if he and Diana divorce. They have been separated since december 1992. Twenty seven percent of those polled thought Britain would be better off without the Royal family up from 20 percent in 1992. Asked which members of the Royal family were doing a Good Job 72 percent named Queen Elizabeth ii and 67 percent mentioned her daughter Princess Anne. There a no reason Why people have to be intimidated by software  Karen Fries a bobs designer the user began looking for such tools. In Early 1991, Fries and Linnett began pelting Gates and other Microsoft executives with memos arguing that the company heeded to find ways to make software easier to use. Wizards were one approach. Fries and Linnett also proposed creating a guides a or what Gates said he called a clowns a that would help users More. Around the same time a growing number of computer researchers at places including Apple computer inc. Arid the Massachusetts institution of technology were dabbling with ways to create similar software agents that could do such tasks. Debates continue about what such agents should look like and what they should do yet Fries and Linnett decided they liked animated cartoon characters. A where people still Pride themselves on the ability to write millions of lines of Complex software code. Patty Stonesifer senior vice president of Microsoft a consumer division which is responsible for Bob said that the first time she saw a demonstration of the guides a it took me that beat of 10 to say a what is this  a a Gates said a it was Clear from the very beginning that Fries and Linnett were aiming at something with a huge  but making such assistance work with More conventional programs such As word processing was Tricky. A i kept saying a so is that Clown always going to be there a a Gates recalled. Yet when the two  their guides on people outside of Microsoft they discovered that users often became very fond of them. A people were acting like these characters were real a Fries said. About a year into the project two Stanford University communications professors Clifford Nass and Byron Reeves gave a talk at Microsoft about How people relate to their computers. Nass and Reeves also helped coax Gates into believing that there Are social rules or ways that people act with inanimate objects such As cars or computers. When they explained their theories to Gates Fries recalled a it was like that Light bulb thing. Gates said a so like people Are polite to their computers a a with the help from Nass and Reeves the Microsoft designers became More thoughtful in creating their guides. They tried out the characters on hundreds of potential users. What resulted were a dozen general characters that amount to virtual pets. As a results Bob looks completely different from any other Microsoft product. Technically Bob is an application that acts like a table cloth on top of Microsoft windows operating system software. Instead of the no nonsense collection of tiny windows icons that represent programs or files Bob users Sec a picture of a front door with a Knocker a Friendly dog named Rover snoozes in the Corner of the screen. With the Click of a computer mouse Button the door opens into a colourful cartoon picture of a room throughout which books a calculator a Calendar and a half written letter and so Forth Are scattered.  .���. Rover who serves As a guide is ready to offer to help the user with any chores. Users can choose other guides that Are More or less helpful Friendly aggressive of submissive. For instance a Parrot named Ruby is somewhat of a grouch. A Blue Dinosaur Java who claims to be jittery from drinking too much Coffee is Friendly. A so far Only two non Microsoft companies Are working to Hook their software to Bob. The program which runs with windows and requires 8 megabytes of random Access memory will Cost $99 and will be available March 31. Royal troublemakers a newspaper asked is readers which member of the British Royal family had done the most damage to the Prince Charles # 0 51 % a Fergie Duchess of York i 20% Diana Princess of Wales 14% numbers do not add up to 100 percent source guardian newspapers amps Charles and Diana lagged behind at 35 percent each while 3 percent thought the Duchess of York the former Sarah Ferguson was doing a Good Job. The poll by ice was based on interviews with 1,003 people age 15 or older conducted Between dec. 14 and dec. 16, it has a margin of error of about 3 percentage Points. A a British comic Peter Cook Dies Cook London a Peter Cook the tall acerbic half of a frequent comic partnership with Dudley Moore died monday his family said. He was 57, Cook died of a gastrointestinal Haemorrhage at. Royal free Hospital where he was admitted last tuesday. A there is a place in society for Nasty minded rude people a Cook once said. The crack could Nave summarized his performing Persona. Cook achieved Fame in the 1960s in the comedy review beyond the fringe with Jonathan Miller Alan Bennett and Moore. Cook also appeared with Moore in the British broadcasting corp. Comedy hit not Only but also which ran in the mid-1960s and again in the Early 1970s. Cooke a film roles included the wrong Box 1965bedazzled 1967the hound of the Baskerville 1979derek and Clive 1981yellowbear 1983 and whoops apocalypse 1987. Cook is survived by his third wife  Cook and to daughters by his first  s mousing around wreaks havoc upon Airliner. From the associated press Stockholm Sweden a a mouse that scampered aboard an Sas jetliner in new York played havoc with the aircraft bound for Stockholm. The mouse supposedly got on Board the Boeing 767 in new York together with the food carts airline officials said monday. V when the jetliner landed in Stockholm on saturday morning an Sas team searched the aircraft and put out mousetraps but gave up after five hours. The plane which was due to return to new York was pulled out of service and flown to Copenhagen Denmark for another Check. But again no mouse was found. ,. Sas officials said monday that they were sure the tiny creature left the Boeing 767 in Stockholm. Lena Hoglund an Sas spokeswoman told a a a Stockholm newspaper that the rodent posed a a Security risk because it could have gnawed on vital electric lines. A. -4 sex leaders charged Berlin a seven former members of East Germany s communist leadership including Erich Honecker a successor have been charged in the. Deaths of people fleeing the country before the Berlin Wall came Down. The seven a former members of the politburo of the East German communist part were accused of multiple counts of manslaughter and attempted manslaughter the Berlin Justice department announced monday. Egon Krenz who took Over from Honecker As communist Leader oct. 18, 1989, is at 57, the youngest of the seven accused. He opened the Wall nov. 9,1989, undergrads roots pressure but was forced out of party office dec. 3. Also accused was Ginter Schabowski 69, who made the announcement that East Germany would permit Freedom of travel a unleashing thousands of people who crossed the Berlin Wall. _. The others accused Are Erich Miick Enberger 84 Kurt Hager 82 Harry Tursch 67 Gunter Kleiber 63 and Horst Dohlus 69