Gallery: Lamest Technology Mascots Ever

By David Becker
description
Technology has always had trouble appealing to the part of our hard-wiring that expects advanced machines to behave like sentient beings. It’s this problem that makes software product managers run screaming to careers in TV marketing, pet supply sales and toy manufacturing. In the meantime, they come up with blatant attempts to personalize tech products through animal and humanoid mascots. Creatures such as Tux the penguin have become http://www.acmesystems.it/?id=21 bizarrely treasured icons, while others, such as recent http://valleywag.com/tech/mystery-billboards/asks-advertising-campaign-249274.php roadside-autopsy subject Jeeves, are better off in the hereafter. And some, such as the http://www.adobe.com/products/creativesuite/ freakishly terrifying jester touting Adobe’s new Creative Suite 3, are an indication that vector-based illustration software should probably come with consumer warning labels, just like those found on drugs, circular saws and guns. From the charmingly pixelated to the hideously misguided, join us on a tour of the good, the bad and the ridiculously lame of technology mascots.Vote on our picks – and add your own nominations – with our http://blog.wired.com/articlecomment/2007/04/gallery_lamest_.html interactive list of the lamest technology mascots.Left: ClippyHas any anthropomorphic character endured more abuse than http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clippy Clippy, the animated paper clip that volunteered unwanted "help" to users through several generations of Microsoft Office? The software giant more-or-less retired him with Office XP, doing the deed with https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sMShkAZR1-Q uncharacteristically self-effacing humor. Verdict: Probably tested well in research.
Tux
description Linux inventor Linus Torvalds suggested a penguin as the proper mascot for the open-source OS, prompting an array of GIMP-wielding artists to develop versions; Larry Ewing’s design won. Linux users find the bird adorable enough to have cast http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tux Tux in hundreds of games, promotions and swag items, and even in a parody of An Inconvenient Truth. But we’ve always been a little freaked by the glaring-into-the-back-of-your-skull eyes. Verdict: Inescapable.
The BSA Ferret
description After years of hearing its tactics compared to those of imperial storm troopers, the Business Software Alliance – the folks who enforce licensing terms for Microsoft and other big software makers – decided it needed a bit of an image makeover. The result was this http://www.playitcybersafe.com/ creepy looking ferret designed to encourage kids to rat out their parents to the software cops. A contest to name him attracted no apparent takers. Verdict: Or maybe "Gestapo" was the winning name.
Clarus, the Dogcow
description Apple introduced this comically bitmapped mammal in 1983 as a way to show paper orientation before printing. The http://www.storybytes.com/moof.html unholy hybrid has since inspired a loyal cult following with numerous web shrines, movies and signature cries of "Moof!" Verdict: Isn’t Clarums just the cutest widdle fellow? Yes he is!
Hexley
description Apparently feeling pressured by Tux, supporters of Darwin, an open-source version of the Mac OS, decided they needed their own mascot. The result is http://www.hexley.com/ Hexley, a curious platypus who in some images is portrayed with horns and a pitchfork – enough evidence for several intelligent design theorists to offer him as proof of the satanic origins of evolutionary biology. Verdict: Weird but lovable.
The Creative Suite Jester
description Adobe wants you to know that this is not a mascot, but rather an illustration of the illustration capabilities of Creative Suite 3. Regardless, we think the company’s http://www.adobe.com/products/creativesuite/ leering Jester, with playing-card skin and teeth, is a classic example of marketing genius gone terribly, terribly wrong. We can only imagine the designs that were rejected before the Adobe marketing department settled on this one. On second thought, we’d rather not. Verdict: Just when we were growing out of our recurring clown nightmare, too.
Duke
description Leave it to Sun Microsystems to identify one of its flagship products with an http://archive.wired.com/culture/design/multimedia/2007/04/https://duke.dev.java.net/ amorphous blob spotting a big red W.C. Fields nose. Duke, whatever he is, is the ambassador of Java and a wee bit shy of household name status. Verdict: A 3-D Rorschach blot – what does he signify to you?
Jeeves
description The marketing geniuses behind the search also-rans Ask.com somehow decided that a cartoon version of P.G. Wodehouse’s http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeeves gracious but pedantic valet was just the ticket to enrapture the online masses. The character was retired last year, just in time to avoid a Google-like proliferation of projects named Bertie, Soapy Sid and Stanley Featherstonehaugh-Ukridge. Verdict: Very good, sir. Will that be all?
The VM Bear
description What better to make you feel all warm and cuddly about an IBM mainframe OS than a smiling teddy bear? Yeah, we can think of few dozen better ideas off the bat, too, but this is what IBM chose to embody the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VM_%28Operating_system%29 operating system that ran all manner of big, clunky computers during the 1970s and ’80s. Verdict: Harmless.
OS-tan
description From the Dept. of Who Knew?, there appears to be a http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OS-tan whole school of amateur manga devoted to personifying Microsoft operating systems. Windows flavors are most often depicted as saucer-eyed girls with underwear management issues. (People with a lot of spare time have tried to prove that the breast size of characters is proportional to minimum installed RAM requirements for the corresponding OS.) But we’re partial to Windows 98 SE, who seems to have come to life as an angry paper bag. Verdict: Strangely compelling.
Mozilla
description The distinction of least cuddly mascot has to go to http://www.mozilla.org/ Mozilla, the fearsome predator meant to embody Netscape’s hopes of creating a "Mosaic killer." Now, of course, it’s the representation of the browser that thwacked IE by being non-predatory. Verdict: Ugh! Zog like tabbed browsing!
Glenda
description "Develop mascot" seems to be an essential part of any open-source software project. So amid the resulting see of cutesy reptiles and whatnot, it’s particularly refreshing to a mascot as distinctive as http://plan9.bell-labs.com/plan9/glenda.html Glenda. The bucktoothed lump is the embodiment of Plan 9 From Bell Labs, a distributed operating system mainly used in research projects. Verdict: Happy, fuzzy petaflop bunny!
Larry the Cow
description Who says mascots have to be overdesigned cartoon characters in vivid hues? http://www.gentoo.org/ Larry the Cow, the inscrutable spokesbeing for the Gentoo distribution of Linux, is both striking and minimalist. Verdict: Isn’t Larry a guy’s name?
Mike the Llama
description Winamp/Nullsoft founder Justin Frankel decided "whips the llama’s ass" was the perfect slogan to promote his new MP3 playback software, and from there a legend was born. Word is that http://www.winamp.com/about/team.php Mike the Llama is currently semi-retired and grazing in the mountains of Oklahoma. Verdict: Good backstory, spits when angry.
Wikipede
description Gangware encyclopedia Wikipedia has been playing with the idea of a mascot for several years. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Mascot Two finalists emerged from numerous submissions: Miwiki, a wide-eye cutesy ant; and Wikipede, a book-browsing centipede with the wild eyes of Red Bull fiend. As for a final choice, it’s been slow death by consensus for several years. Verdict: Go with the centipede – he’s a tenured professor of religion!