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Bill Gates' Winter CES '95 Keynote Featuring Peedy the Parrot. Microsoft's User Interface and Graphics Research Group with Gene Ball Demoing. 1995. Duration: 6:40.

One of the first group research efforts of Microsoft Research's User Interface and Graphics Team was a 3D animated user interface agent, capable of conversational, spoken interaction. That effort was embodied in Peedy the Parrot.

At his Winter CES (Consumer Electronics Show) 1995 keynote, Bill Gates featured a demo of Peedy. That's collaborator Gene Ball demoing Peedy, on stage with Bill. It was in Las Vegas, hence the corny Vegas references. Tim Skelly came up with the one funny gag (Bill asks Peedy to hear the song, "Everybody Wants to Rule the World"). A second video of Peedy is also posted here.

Several talented individuals contributed their sweat and brainpower to the Peedy project. Fellow members of Club Peedy included Gene Ball, David Thiel, Tim Skelly, Andy Stankosky, Maarten van Dantzich, David Pugh, Dan Ling, John Miller, and Trace Wax.

  
 
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