Microsoft Patent Hints At Search Results Tailored To User's Mood, Intelligence 146
theodp writes "A newly surfaced Microsoft patent application, reports GeekWire, describes a 'user-following engine' that analyzes your posts on Facebook, Twitter and other social media sites to deduce your mood, interests, and even your smarts. The system would then automatically adjust the search experience and results to better match those characteristics, explains Microsoft, such as changing the background color of the search interface to suit your mood, or bringing back only those search results that won't strain your feeble brain. From the patent application: 'In addition to skewing the search results to the user's inferred interests, the user-following engine may further tailor the search results to a user's comprehension level. For example, an intelligent processing module may be directed to discerning the sophistication and education level of the posts of a user. Based on that inference, the customization engine may vary the sophistication level of the customized search result.'"
all they need to do is eliminate ad pages (Score:1)
That's what I want, whether constructed pages of junk or Wikipedia mirrors, hat is what I do not wish to see.
I don't think MS's patent would work on me (Score:2)
I do not go to facebook nor I tweet
And if they want to "judge" my "mood", that is, if they can somehow insert a cookie that follows me throughout my web-surfing journey - they have to read the messages I post on /,
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They will go lowest common denominator and serve you up results appropriate to Zippy the Pinhead.... Yow!
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Re:infer someone's cognitive level (Score:2)
Nah, they need to run their engine the other way and tailor it up for smart guys like you. How do I know? Anyone who wheels off "infer someone's cognitive level" ... is way above "How Is Babby Formed".
I did a hobby-experiment with this - just set the Fleschâ"Kincaid Grade Level greater than 4th grade.
Watch how fast THAT rules out junk results!
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But isn't this Microsoft all over? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:But isn't this Microsoft all over? (Score:5, Funny)
Don't exercise your tiny little grey cells. You don't need to learn anything new. You don't need to stretch yourselves or make yourselves better. Just leave it all in our hands.
Huh. I think you mean Apple. It just works!
Re:But isn't this Microsoft all over? (Score:4, Funny)
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b) I think you're conflating grandparent's use of "It just works" meaning "don't think or customise, just use what we give you", with the idea of these Apple products really, genuinely "just working".
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b) I think you're conflating grandparent's use of "It just works" meaning "don't think or customise, just use what we give you", with the idea of these Apple products really, genuinely "just working".
I think you are confusing the tool with the product. You folks sound like the diesel mechanic who hates all the truck drivers because they are stupid in your mind. The computer is a tool, you are there to keep it running.
Re:But isn't this Microsoft all over? (Score:4, Interesting)
They buy into the iTruck hype and keep assuming that the damn thing will keep driving itself down the I-95 while they have a quick kip behind the wheel. And then blame us when they end up in a ditch.
Hence, me bringing up the point of the meanings being conflated. It, contrary to popular (indeed, encouraged) belief, doesn't just work. Hence, the diesel mechanics tend to think less of the truck drivers who haven't bothered to ever look under their hoods; and berate us for making the mere suggestion that they might consider doing so.
Re:But isn't this Microsoft all over? (Score:4, Insightful)
It, contrary to popular (indeed, encouraged) belief, doesn't just work.
Respectfully, nothing "just works".
You may, or may not, choose to hate those who give you work. You may, or may not choose to believe that people who do not know something that you do, are somehow inferior.
But to bring this back to the Apple versus PC, Chevy versus Ford pissing contest, It takes a special kind of foolishness to state that Apple users are idiots who don't know a thing about their computers. I supported Apples, Windows, and even a bit of Linux, and I've found it very advantageous career and pay wise to look at the customer as a resource, not some sort of idiot ranked by OS. How's superiority over the customer work out for you?
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Funnily enough, I do believe that's the point on which we were previously relying.
You seem to be bringing a lot of personal snark into this. Not to mention, this was never originally pointed at any of the users (as you're quite clearly saying with your "inferiority" comments).
This was about Microsoft's plan to circumscribe search results depending on the user's "mood" and "intelligence"; what this implies in a future when people are already burying their heads in the
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You seem to be bringing a lot of personal snark into this.
A few quotes from the thread.........
"Because these people don't really get how to use these devices. b) I think you're conflating grandparent's use of "It just works" meaning "don't think or customise, just use what we give you", with the idea of these Apple products really, genuinely "just working"." " You're also right. Ever since I started supporting people with iPads, I accepted the truth of that."
"If it just works, why do they need you to support them?"
"They buy into the iTruck hype and keep a
Re:But isn't this Microsoft all over? (Score:5, Insightful)
More than that, don't look for any possible truths outside of your opinions and existing personal prejudices. If you can't face facts, then design a system that gladly tells you the lies you want to hear. Promotes your ignorance and panders to your stupidity. This isn't convenience, its self perpetuating brain damage.
Re:But isn't this Microsoft all over? (Score:4, Interesting)
Get real, in this case the headline should read M$ patents delusion. Have you ever heard of speech recognition http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speech_recognition [wikipedia.org], after all these years and all the hundreds of millions of dollars spent on it it still sucks. To get anywhere near accurate you have to train the person and software, the person has to remain sober and always speak in the manner they have been trained by the software to maintain. Open speech recognition is still many years off.
This patent claim is about taking what you've typed in and based upon passed wildly intrusive privacy invasion, guess what your actually searching for.
I have helped people search, in fact doing it for them and they often struggle to provide a clear verbal description of what they are really after, even after personally knowing them and listening to them for a few minutes. Only once the search is being done and results come up can you compare the results to what they are telling you to finally really understand what they are after.
M$ is simply filing a patent on something they are incapable of doing just in case someone can do it. A quick review of the patent indicates that it wildly infringes upon privacy laws. Reading it seems, this patent seems to be more about throwing out a patent net for each of the described functions rather than the whole patent. A whole bunch of submarine patents.
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More than that, don't look for any possible truths outside of your opinions and existing personal prejudices. If you can't face facts, then design a system that gladly tells you the lies you want to hear. Promotes your ignorance and panders to your stupidity. This isn't convenience, its self perpetuating brain damage.
Sounds like Fox News - and anything else that Murdoch does.
Oh, look: prior art.
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I keep getting ads for guns, ammo, tannerite and paracetamol! WHY? OH WHY?
http://www.tannerite.com/ [tannerite.com]
http://www.examiner.com/article/boa-drops-firearm-company-mcmillan-company-to-halt-accepting-boa-cards [examiner.com]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ammunition_box [wikipedia.org]
Duck Duck Go gave those links when I entered my mood.
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Oh come on DNS-andBind, Metro is so user friendly with so many hints and useful design paradigms to make it simple to use.
I am sure people are going to take one look at it and be in ohh and ahhh for its glory and be dumping their dependable Windows 7 machines for this new workflow that works so well with multi monitors and running several apps at a time and be so much more simple than an IPAD.
Number one reason I dislike Microsoft... (Score:4, Interesting)
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All the big names treat their customers like morons. Apple makes computers and phone tailored to fit the needs of imbeciles. Google customizes searches so you don't need to do any footwork to find what you are looking for. Microsoft does the same. Its how to sell a lot of products nowadays, people want all their thinking done for them.
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Nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public.
- H.L. Mencken
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That by itself wouldn't be so bad if catering to ididots weren't a requirement for big success.
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yeah, hoping that linux will still boot after every kernel update and spending hours googling to (maybe) get my sound card and wifi working is the hallmark of intelligence.
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What, huh?
Oh... I see, it's a cute green haired troll =) 3 3
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well, yeah, a bit of a troll, but it doesn't make me wrong. apple sells the only "just works" unix available today.
Re:Number one reason I dislike Microsoft... (Score:5, Interesting)
The funniest part about this is where they deduce your intelligence. Really microsoft, the finest minds on earth have yet to come up with a satisfactory definition of the term, yet your goons are going to magicalgorithm the concept into your search results?
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It's self-selection at work. You're not the brightest light on the bulb with bing as your default search engine...
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Why even deduce the intelligence of the person? First of all, this requires knowledge of the person searching, so more tracking of people and what they do or say. Second, they're most certainly going to be wrong in a large percentage of cases and will probably offend the person searching.
Give people a way to tune the results themselves.. maybe I want an overview of a topic to see what it's about, and another day I want to delve deeper.
Way to turn something simple into something that requires more trac
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I disliked MS a lot when I created this account hence my name 11 years ago.
However, I will say recently MS has got a lot better (with the exception of metro). MS tried go the route with BoB, clippy, and the whole garbage of MS products like MS Dogs (actual product) in CompUSA back in the 1990s.
Windows 7 has saved search results, can organize many Windows at once, and do things for productive people that is not deducing your intelligence at all. It seems though they are returning that route with Metro sadly.
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Couldn't agree more, "The system would then automatically adjust the search experience and results"; I don't want them to adjust search results based on my mood, I want the most relevant information relating to my query....no matter what kind of mood i'm in
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Speaking of moods: What if I'm in a foul mood and want to cheer myself up? If they try to match my mood, will they not be reenforcing it?
Also, the audacity of guessing my intelligence. "You're too dumb to get all the search results. Here's want you can understand."
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...they treat us all like morons.
Well, their idea now is to only treat some of us like morons. So it's an improvement.
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What I'm hoping for is a search site that limits results to technical content even if the term has some other meaning in popular culture, and more to the point, blocks all the pop culture crap that hurts my oversized brain. Once they find ways to block all the highly complex content from the non-techies, it shouldn't be all that hard to invert the limits....
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I'm waiting for the clippy that is tailored to someone who reads lol catz. "You can clikz teh helpz." "Teh green squiggiees mean haz bad gramma"
Re:Number one reason I dislike Microsoft... (Score:4, Informative)
I'm waiting for the clippy that is tailored to someone who reads lol catz.
Funny!, you should get a name in here so that you don't float around with such a low score.
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And Google is *not* trying to "help" their customer? Google screws with search results all the time: it used to be much more geek-friendly than it is today. It thinks it knows what I want to search better than I do: thinking I make typos when I don't, and it includes search terms I don't want to include. Many of the geek customizations for advanced users that used to work are no longer available.
You know you're a redneck.. (Score:3, Funny)
You know Microsoft thinks your dumb if you search for "secret service prostitutes colombia" and the first result is "Escorts discretas colombianos a precios asequibles".
Re:You know you're a redneck.. (Score:5, Funny)
And you know Slashdot thinks you're dumb because you just used the wrong "your".
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And you know Slashdot thinks you're dumb because you just used the wrong "your".
No. Slashdot thinks you're dumb because an Anonymous Coward pointed this out more than an hour before your post.
This is backwards, and is the work of idiots. (Score:1)
Listen up, Microserfs :
What anyone wants is to quickly and easily find
results.
The idea that search results will be better suited to a person
you do not even know because you insert some algorithm into
the mix is just absurd. Sorry, but real life is not something which
can be solved like some puzzle.
Further, your little game will probably fuck up the chance that
serendipity ( in the form of an illogical search return ) might
cause happy results.
Google already doing this? (Score:3, Interesting)
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hmmm... what we need is a search engine that does no evil.
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hmmmm DuckDuckGo
https://duckduckgo.com/ [duckduckgo.com]
We can also make Google slightly less evil ://encrypted.google.com/search?op=out&nfpr=1&pws=0&complete=0
https
Bing however, lacks most url parameters, we must feed it cookies.
Cookie: _FP=EM=2;_FS=NU=1;_SS=SID=7EE6E87CC0D54A94B00A781D9BBF8197;MUID=30548A3F32BF61880EE9890E33B861D6;SRCHD=MS=2229782;SRCHUID=V=2&GUID=4C8D14618CBF44278D9CEB1BEEF6D4F7;_HOP=;_UR=OMW=0;SRCHHPGUSR=ADLT=OFF&SRCHLANG=&AS=0
My quick research so far...
I use BrowserMasquerade ad
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Prior art!
Why bother with analyzing intelligence (Score:1)
Welcome to Clippy 2.0 (Score:3)
How about you just return the results that match what I typed in?
This is pretty simple (Score:3)
I really wish these search companies would go back to their roots and provide bare metal search results.
Stop geo/mood/intelligence filtering the results for me.
Especially the geographic results. If I want results for my location, I'll include it in the search.
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I really wish these search companies would go back to their roots and provide bare metal search results.
Stop geo/mood/intelligence filtering the results for me.
Especially the geographic results. If I want results for my location, I'll include it in the search.
Oh yes. This is something which really makes me mad sometimes, when a website/search engine/whatever makes ASSUMPTIONS based on my location (IP address). Listen, just because I am sitting in Germany, that does not automatically mean I *want* everything to be presented in a crappy German translation (I can understand your normal website with MORE content very well, ty very much), or that I want to see only stuff your German distributor has available. Maybe I want to look up stuff for some US product I bought
Could be useful (Score:5, Funny)
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So if a writer types 'How does someone publish there book?', Microsoft will send them to a spelling and grammar site instead of HarperCollins?
No. Send them to Clippy! "I see you are trying to write 'their'. Would you like help with that?"
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So if a writer types 'How does someone publish there book?', Microsoft will send them to a spelling and grammar site instead of HarperCollins?
As long as it isn't PublishAmerica, we can all be happy. Perhaps they should be reserved for idiots with automatic weapons who are really pissed off with life.
So does it default to... (Score:4, Insightful)
"Can't find him on FaceBook. He must be stupid".
-or-
"Can't find him on FaceBook. He must be smart".
Alta Vista did this 15 years ago... (Score:5, Funny)
Alta Vista did this back in the nineties. Virtually any result I found was exactly what I was in the mood for! Thanks to Google, now I have to type specific words in to get porn. Innovation, pbtbtbt.
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This technology will really come in handy... (Score:2)
...for targeting malware.
Great. (Score:3)
So, does that mean when I look at my Facebook Friends List, I'll start getting popups for Proazc, Paxil and Xanax?
Oh my! (Score:4, Funny)
"Honestly, professor, I searched for all these things that you told us to search for, but none of these links you are showing us ever came up!"
Trapped by personal history? (Score:4, Insightful)
I worry that customizing *search*, or customizing computer-based mediation/filtering of objective reality (as will be possible through video glasses and earphones) -- especially if made somewhat automatic by corporate-defined models of how people behave -- will eventually cause people to be trapped by their own personal history of thoughts and beliefs.
It's like people being attracted to Fox News or the Rush Limbaugh radio show because of whatever thoughts and beliefs they have at the time, and then forever finding comfort there because of a lack of competing/challenging input (partly because the opportunity for alternative input is crowded out by the activity of viewing/listening to their initial media channel of choice).
We are all familiar with "helpful" automation making choices that go against our personal wishes (or, at best, are simply unhelpful). But search (and, soon, mediated reality for the masses) creates the scary possibility of people becoming very isolated and trapped by their own history of personal actions and implied "preferences".
I've sometimes done web searches for things in which I had only incidental interest -- topics which might even offend me, but which I would like to learn about for the purposes of being informed -- and the search service has inferred that I am actually generally interested in those topics. Needless to say, the chance for automated systems drawing the wrong conclusions is very high.
I've seen blogs and discussion forums with communities with wacky beliefs, and it's sad that the insanity doesn't get any constructive criticism because of "moderators" (ironic term here) deleting any challenging/opposing comments. In the same way, unwittingly or intentionally, a person might become immersed in their own world of information.
I actually like the idea of modifying reality! I'd love to surround myself with challenging and encouraging avatars with virtual reality glasses and earphones, because I think having personal coaches and cheerleaders around me all the time (virtually) would be a supernatural boost. I don't know how to reconcile my attraction for that idea with my general concern about people experiencing detrimental self-delusion, except to say that I think that *automatic* guesses about "preferences" seems bad.
Although people can benefit from their memories (e.g., education and work experience) and past actions (e.g., earning money, buying and accumulating things), I worry about mechanisms that TRAP people in to their own legacy of memories and actions. Things like credit scores, criminal records, Internet records, etc, can make it difficult for people to change direction and grow, and have a new phase in their lives. Given the increasing role of Internet search and mediated reality in the lives of ordinary people, a new, and profoundly influential, mental trap is being built around them. I'm not judging it, but for some people their avatar in the World of Warcraft MMORPG is as much an influence on their lives as real-world people; and, in the same way, I think web search and mediated reality will eventually become the dominant influences in the lives of many people. I think the widespread absorption of people with their smartphones (after the earlier phenomenon of "Crackberry" devices) is somewhat telling.
Search results should be objective, not subjective (Score:1)
I think Google and Microsoft have it all wrong with bubbling users. I strongly believe that it's the job of the user to enter the proper queries so that he or she will receive the proper result. I don't want the engine to guess what I like or how I feel. Furthermore, search results are not about a popularity contest, I want relevant search results, not popular results. On that front, I feel like Google have given up, I find it increasingly hard to search for things that are the opposite of what's popular. (
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Exactly!
While they're at it they can patent a car with no steering wheel. Instead it senses your mood and intelligence and drives youwhere it guesses you want to go.
Clippy, is that you? (Score:1, Troll)
Clippy's back...
"Hi, it looks like you're an idiot. Let me omit all search results that aren't TV or XBox related."
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> Let me omit all search results that aren't TV or XBox related.
Typical Clippy bungling. No sports scores.
I.Q. Too low (Score:4, Funny)
YOU CAN'T HANDLE THE TRUTH!
Inferred interest? (Score:5, Insightful)
In addition to skewing the search results to the user's inferred interests, the user-following engine may further tailor the search results to a user's comprehension level.
<Samuel L. Jackson Voice>
Dear Condescending Microsoft Motherfuckers. My motherfucking search interests are directly expressed by my motherfucking search query - that's why I fucking entered it. In addition, there are times I want to actually *learn* something, which necessitates results above my current motherfucking comprehension level.
</Samuel L. Jackson Voice>
Why can't search engines simply answer the questions as I ask and let *me* worry about asking better questions?
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Bing: "So you're interested in intercourse; more specifically, intercourse with mothers?"
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I believe you can set the language in the default-search-engine settings (in Chrome).
I use bing as my default search engine. I use "setmkt=en-US" to get US english Bing results, even though bing knows that I am located near Frankfurt which it shows on top-right corner.
This is my default search engine:: http://www.bing.com/search?setmkt=en-US&q=%25s [bing.com]
Something similar should be possible for google as well.
Dynamic Guesstimating (Score:2)
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My keyboard has an AZERTY layout, you insensitive clod!
Vaporware (Score:2)
After all these years. . . (Score:2)
*sniff* They said Redmond could never do it *cough* but they were WRONG!
Future Microsoft UI (Score:2)
Facebook, Twitter? (Score:2)
To deduce your smarts? A moment while I clean my keyboard.
Next thing you know, they'll stoop to Bing users.
Citizen (Score:2)
Terrible idea (Score:2)
fuck off (Score:2)
Can all those "customized" search results please fuck off and leave me alone?
I like getting results from outside my own bubble of reality, even from outside my comfort zone. It allows me to broaden my horizon and learn something new.
And when I'm in a bad mood, the last thing I need is more depressing stuff. Frankly, that alone is a sufficient reason to never, ever, ever even consider using any search engine that MS is running.
There is no reason to assume searches are related. (Score:2)
The return of Clippy (Score:2)
I hate DWIM stuff. (Score:2)
"Do what I mean" is the worst possible response from a computer, "Do what I say" might be bad but it's better than any of the alternatives.
That's why my Google links have a veritable alphabet soup attached to them... Google Search 1 [google.com] vs. Google search 2 [google.com]
What I'd like is a nice simple dwiS flag that I can attach ... but,
Of course if the first one doesn't work for you maybe Google has already decided you're too dumb...
isn't this the same thing as... (Score:2)
If Bing figures out that you LIKE Fox News, they never include results from Snopes.com, or anything that leans away from fairies and bean stalks towards reality.
Can I control that? (Score:2)
With absolutely zero social networking outside of these posts on slashdot, I'll love that feature if I can control it. But I've long been requesting the ability to filter search results based on the reputation of the source. Sometimes I'm searching the equivalent of "what would the general population think is the...", and wikipedia results are great. Other times, I need a real medical journal or newspaper result. And other times still I'm searching on behalf of a seven year old, and want the lowest leve
This could backfire (Score:1)
There are a lot of dumb people out there.Including intelligence in their search queries could cost Microsoft customers by sending more people toward Apple results.
Wait til Citizens United gets its hands on this (Score:1)
Simple Algorithm (Score:2)
The mood of Microsoft users? "Frustrated." Duh!
Microsoft Privacy © (Score:1)
If Google did this it would be a gross invasion of our privacy
Just another reason not to use MS (Score:2)
These people are fucking morons.
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speling for dummies
+1 for the pun. Everyone knows speeling has two e's in it.
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So maybe they add 150 to your default IQ if you don't post on facebook
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"Dammit! Every search gives me results featuring Ke$ha!"