News: Software that Learns by Watching

KarDo learns how to perform common IT support tests by observing what the experts do.
By Duncan Graham-Rowe
WEDNESDAY, MAY 19, 2010

Overworked and much in demand, IT support staff can't be in two places at once. But software designed to watch and learn as they carry out common tasks could soon help--by automatically performing the same jobs across different computers.

The new software system, called KarDo, was developed by researchers at MIT. It can automatically configure an e-mail account, install a virus scanner, or set up access to a virtual private network, says MIT's Dina Katabi, an associate professor at MIT.

Crucially, the software just needs to watch an administrator perform this task once before being able to carry out the same job on computers running different software. Businesses spend billions of dollars each year on simple and repetitive IT tasks, according to reports from the analyst groups Forrester and Gartner. KarDo could reduce these costs by as much as 20 percent, Katabi says.

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