New Scientitist published Polite computers win users’ hearts and minds, an article about a study done by Jeng-Yi Tzeng at the National Tsing Hua University in Taiwan. Tzeng says his results show that courteous computers that say “I’m sorry” will make people less apprehensive about using them. Today, error messages from most computer operating systems make the user feel stupid or somehow at fault.

One interesting quote in the article is from Eric Horvitz of Microsoft, who stated, “As computers have got more powerful, people have come to expect them to behave more like collaborators and less like tools or appliances.”

[Via Tomalak’s Realm : Daily Links to Internet and Technology News.]