Old-school theory is a new force | CNET News.com: “Search giant Google and Autonomy, a company that sells information retrieval tools, both employ Bayesian principles to provide likely (but technically never exact) results to data searches. Researchers are also using Bayesian models to determine correlations between specific symptoms and diseases, create personal robots, and develop artificially intelligent devices that “think” by doing what data and experience tell them to do.

One of the more vocal Bayesian advocates is Microsoft. The company is employing ideas based on probability–or “probabilistic” principles–in its Notification Platform. The technology will be embedded in future Microsoft software and is intended to let computers and cell phones automatically filter messages, schedule meetings without their owners’ help and derive strategies for getting in touch with other people.

If successful, the technology will give rise to “context servers”–electronic butlers that will interpret people’s daily habits and organize their lives under constantly shifting circumstances. “