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Clippy is back as a Cortana Easter egg in Windows Phone 8.1

Clippy, the infamous "assistant" who kept popping up to see users of older Office programs needed help, just won't go away. First, Microsoft put him in the free Office Online on April Fools' Day, and now he has appeared as an Easter egg in the recently released developer preview of Windows Phone 8.1.

The hidden Clippy was discovered by a member of the Windows Phone Central forums who asked Cortana if she liked Clippy. Cortana apparently has a couple of responses to that inquiry. such as, "What's not to like? That guy took a heck of a beating and he's still smiling," as well as, "Definitely. He taught me how important it is to listen." The Cortana circular avatar then turns into Clippy himself. Spooky.

While Clippy was seen as a major annoyance to Office users years ago, the character has since become more lovable, thanks in part to nostalgia for the earlier days of personal computing. Today, we have Cortana as Microsoft's first major step in creating a digital assistant since Clippy, and it's already a massive improvement.

Source: Windows Phone Central forums

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