STOP PRESS: Wonder why Microsoft Agent won't speak in Windows XP?
Microsoft Agent uses SAPI 4.0 to provide speech however Windows XP ships with SAPI 5.0 which is not backwards-compatible. Fortunately, SAPI 4.0 and SAPI 5.0 can co-exist together on the same Windows XP computer. In order to enable speech for Microsoft Agent under Windows XP please download and install the SAPI 4.0 runtime library.

This page illustrates the most basic use of Microsoft Agent. Once the character and its animations have been successfully loaded, Genie will appear, say a few words, and disappear. You can refresh the page to make this happen again.

Be patient! Loading of the character may take a few minutes.

This sample loads its character from an HTTP URL, so you must be connected to the internet and be able to reach the server at http://www.microsoft.com/msagent or the sample will not work properly.

You may also be prompted to install the Lernout & Hauspie TTS (Text-To-Speech) Engine which is required to allow the characters to speak through your PC's sound system. Windows XP users should install the SAPI 4.0 runtime library.

If you're interested in how it works, right-click on the page and select View Source to examine the HTML code for this page or visit the Microsoft Agent pages.

Since you can also "talk" to Agents it should be possible to create speech-driven site navigation... Watch this space.