How stupid is Windows?

The New York Times Magazine ran a story a few weeks ago (Times Select subscription required) about Microsoft research into managing attention and distractions. The idea is to create artificial intelligence programs for determining when computers should interrupt your work to bother you. Some prototypes have already been developed, and the article suggests Microsoft may adopt some of the ideas into its new operating system:

So will Microsoft bring these calming technologies to our real-world computers? ... The near-term answer to the question will come when Vista, Microsoft's new operating system, is released in the fall of 2006. Though Czerwinski and Horvitz are reluctant to speculate on which of their innovations will be included in the new system, Horvitz said that the system will "likely" incorporate some way of detecting how busy you are. But he admitted that "a bunch of features may not be shipping with Vista." He says he believes that Microsoft will eventually tame the interruption-driven workplace, even if it takes a while. "I have viewed the task as a 'moon mission' that I believe that Microsoft can pull off," he says.

Sounds great, like most Microsoft rhetoric, but despite spending untold millions on R&D they execute like the Bush administration. As an illustration, two graduate students in my department had presentations interrupted this week because Windows is so stupid. One accidentally hit the power button during a Powerpoint slideshow, and the computer turned itself off without asking for confirmation -- a distraction that required a five minute reboot. The other was told, also in the middle of a slideshow, that his automatic Windows update was complete and asked to reboot his machine. His only options were to "Restart now" or "Restart Later," and if he hit "Restart Later," the window popped back up five minutes later and did the same thing all over again. So during the course of a 40 minute presentation and a 45 minute Q&A, he probably had to turn it off 12 or 13 times. What if it he had been giving a job talk?

Comments

[Jon H]

Your examples also demonstrate that it can be difficult to determine when someone's busy.

The computer wasn't actually doing much during those presentations. And when you're focused on reading an online document, it will look the same as if you're not doing much of anything.

If Microsoft assumes that you're busy only when you're doing lots of clicking and typing, that may be incorrect. When you really don't want to be distracted, when you're thinking, your activity on the computer probably seems the same as if you weren't even at your desk.