(New Mar. 97) Microsoft Office 97 , the latest edition of the world's best-selling office suite, integrates a novel approach for on-line user assistance based on intelligent and personalized software. The so-called Office Assistant is an intelligent help system with a character-based interface which relies on the metaphor of the departmental guru. The highly customizable tool allows the user to control both, its appearance and its behavior. The Office Assistant is designed to give guidance to the user making use of the following features:
(New July 97) The broad application of user-expertise modeling for adaptive interfaces has long been hindered by the lack of standard, automatic means of performing knowledge assessment. UKAT (TM) - the User Knowledge Assessment Tool - is a new user-expertise modeling tool for evaluating an individual's knowledge based on a short questionnaire. The tool which has been developed by the Human-Computer Interaction Group at the Centre de Recherche Informatique de Montréal (CRIM ) is based on principles in statistics, cognitive science and artificial intelligence. UKAT constructs a fine-grain model of a user's knowledge-state based on a small number of observations. The likelihood that a user masters an individual knowledge unit is modeled as a set of weights which are updated continuously during a question and answer process. The updating method is based on an evidence propagation algorithm using an empirically derived network of knowledge units. The approach has been validated over a number of knowledge domains and the results show that UKAT can automatically construct a new model of a knowledge domain from empirical data obtained from as few as 30 people. One of the first practical applications of the novel product relates to the Self-Learning Guide , an advanced system for computer-aided learning.
(New Oct. 97) IBM corporation has released Version 2.0 of its WBI (Web Browser Intelligence) agent software which provides an intelligent user interface as an enhancement of conventional browser software. The product supports a more personalized experience of WWW access since it is able to observe user actions, proactively offer assistance, modify web documents, and perform new functions (see Barrett et al. [1997] for a more detailed technical description).
WBI Personal Web Agent runs on standard PC platforms and works with any Web browser. The software is available free for personal Web use but cannot be sold or redistributed. The intelligent agent technology behind WBI is available for licensing.
(New Nov. 97)
Recommendation systems (see Resnick and Varian [1997]) offer a new kind of
personalized service which relies on collaborative filtering - a user
modeling technique that uses mathematical algorithms to factor
preferences.
Massachusetts-based
Firefly Network, Inc.
,
one of the first companies to build and market such a system, recently
announced updates for their product line.
The new versions feature performance improvements and support for
additional system platforms.
Passport Office
is a Web user profile management system that registers and recognizes
users in order to personalize information and content.
The central profile management component of Firefly's client/server
platform offers sites the ability to issue and recognize so-called
Firefly Passports, control and manage profile information and
offer customers a highly personalized experience.
Firefly's Catalog Navigator
is the main delivery mechanism for recommendations.
The tool lets Web sites steer users toward products by creating
personalized lists of recommendations and connecting users with
similar interests.
The
Passport Office
tool can simplify user account and profile management by automatically
passing account information between sites.
That means users can log on to other sites that use
Firefly
's
collaborative filtering without creating new accounts.
To address concerns about this kind of information sharing as well as
security in general,
Firefly
provides password protection and user-information encryption.
These capabilities are designed to enable individuals to understand
what kind of information is being collected and to view and edit any
personal information gathered online, protecting their privacy and
increasing the integrity of their data.
(New Jan. 99) An interesting example in the use of user modeling techniques in deploying personalized World-Wide Web services is the One-to-One development tool from BroadVision Inc. in California, USA. The tool uses both stored and learned customer profiles in combination with business rules to determine what information or services to present. BroadVision One-to-One is an industrial-strength software application system for rapid development and real-time operation of large-scale, personalized Internet, Intranet, and Extranet business applications. The base product supports large user and content databases, high transaction volumes, intelligent agent matching, and easy integration with existing business systems. It also incorporates a suite of management tools that empower non-technical business managers, content editors, and Web masters to dynamically control application behavior from their desktops. The One-to-One product line includes also packaged applications for electronic commerce, financial services, and corporate knowledge management.