
Knowmail – AI for email - eranknow
https://www.knowmail.me/
======
gravypod
I wish someone would clone a service like this and make if self hosted. I am
completely uncomfortable with sharing my email data with a third party
company.

~~~
eranknow
Email data is not shared, as it remains client side, where recommendations are
given per user.

No identifiable data leaves your device, and only anonymized info is utilized
to build a "personal model" for a user.

~~~
bonoboTP
No way to know, since it isn't free software.

~~~
gravypod
It's good to see that someone remembers why libre software IS important.
Because you know what you are running on your machine.

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6d6b73
This has nothing to do with AI... Not long ago everything needed to have
"built with JavaScript" stamp, now it must have AI to sell, but ...does it
have electrolytes?

~~~
TeMPOraL
There's tons of areas where AIs, or rather, basic ML, could be used but for
some reason isn't. I'm thinking about e.g. adaptive interfaces, the kind that
can really be learning your habits on the fly. Think e.g. public transit app /
widget that takes into account your precise location, as well as day of the
week, time of the day, etc. to learn your habits and prioritize which
timetables to suggest you by default (e.g. it's Wednesday evening, so you're
probably coming back from work, so the default timetable will be the bus home
at the stop next to work).

I tried to do exactly that for an university project, it's not very hard. Even
simple methods can give pretty good results.

Google Now is about the first case I ever saw someone finally working on it,
but it doesn't seem like it's a priority for them. My charitable guess is that
they're afraid of confusing non-tech people.

Hell, maybe I'll write myself a watchapp.

(I started thinking a lot about this after reading a great essay by Bret
Victor -
[http://worrydream.com/#!/MagicInk](http://worrydream.com/#!/MagicInk))

~~~
x3c
I disagree with your assertion "There's tons of areas where that AIs, or
rather, basic ML, could be used". The issue with AIs or ML or any
probabilistic prediction of what user wants is that it takes away control.
E.g. sorting your apps by usage. It's a solution in search of a problem. If
you rearrange my apps by usage, you are asking me to search my apps everytime.
It breaks my patterns and habits. And we are animals for patterns.

There are some definite places where AI/ML/Adaptive algos help. Examples would
be Facebook search, Apps recommendation, music recommendation, smart
playlists, autocomplete and search etc. where any good tech team worth its
salt is already using these techniques.

It's also the reason why Knowmail or Inbox by google are not great. I go
through my mail in a set pattern. I code those patterns by labels or folders
and clean folder by folder. I don't need to context switch between each mail
of similar definitive categories. In these mail solutions, I make decision of
the context on each mail. Is it a support email or a collegue email or a mail
from my priority mailing list or from a developer for tech problem?

And that's why I'm thankful that AI is not being used in the tons of places
that you refer. You will put me in a world where I'm living by someone else's
patterns that mine own.

At the risk of generalizing (but reinforcing the patterns thinking), it's a
common pattern with Engineers to apply a solution on all kinds of problems
without challenging the efficacy of said solutions for those problems.

~~~
TeMPOraL
I guess some people think about it differently than others. I don't see a
properly applied ML as taking away control - I see it as _reinforcing_ your
control. ML as applied to UIs should be about your conversation with the app
(and nothing else, no cloud bullshit please).

I haven't seen _any_ actual adaptivity in Inbox by Google. The interface is
static, it's just different than ordinary GMail. Is there something I've
missed?

To address your example of sorting apps. This is a dumb idea mostly because -
as you said - it interferes with habit-forming. Not that anyone cares these
days, I can't find many examples where people would remember to _not_
rearrange stuff like context menus pointlessly. But I think it could work as
an _addition_. Instead of resorting your icons, just have a (small) area with,
say, 5 apps most relevant contextually. This is something I'd actually pay to
use. Hell, long long time ago I backed a project for an Android tablet
homescreen that was supposed to rearrange visible widgets depending on your
location and time of day. Great idea, but they fucked up execution (honestly,
for such a project MVP is _not_ enough, it gains utility per feature added in
a superlinear fashion). I'd pay for something like this _again_.

> _At the risk of generalizing (but reinforcing the patterns thinking), it 's
> a common pattern with Engineers to apply a solution on all kinds of problems
> without challenging the efficacy of said solutions for those problems._

Hey, I'm not asking for a product like this to be built for general
population. GenPop has plenty of flashy shiny apps already. I wish that
someone would build a tool for a subset of engineers who think the way I do.
The market is big enough to facilitate that. And apparently unwilling to cater
for niches.

~~~
x3c
> I haven't seen any actual adaptivity in Inbox by Google. The interface is
> static, it's just different than ordinary GMail. Is there something I've
> missed?

If you turn on smart filters, it'll try to club promotions / payments / forums
etc. smartly. It'd be right 90% time. But my threshold would be less than 1%
failure.

If you open an email in Inbox, it'd recommend quick action replies like
"Thanks, got it." or "Lets meet" etc.. It was on spot a lot of times, but I
always wanted to add something more to the message and that's why I didn't use
them.

> This is something I'd actually pay to use. Hell, long long time ago I backed
> a project for an Android tablet homescreen that was supposed to rearrange
> visible widgets depending on your location and time of day

I used One Plus2 briefly which had an area for smart apps. Since I could never
predict what would be there, I never used it. I went there a few times to see
if it would shorten time to action.

iOS has a recommended app at bottom left of lock screen. I use it purely as
discovery. I've never found acceptable hit ratio of recommended app in my
situational context and now I've blindness to that particular place.

If Knowmail guys are reading this, I'm not trying to discourage the product. I
think Smartness should be in "Search mode" and not "Action mode". Action mode
is when I want quick decision making and less evaluation. Search mode is when
I'm open for back to back snap evaluations and unsure of next steps. i.e.
don't interrupt my natural patterns. Ofcourse, I'm just one data point.

~~~
mcintyre1994
> iOS has a recommended app at bottom left of lock screen. I use it purely as
> discovery. I've never found acceptable hit ratio of recommended app in my
> situational context and now I've blindness to that particular place.

Are you sure this is what you think it is? For me that app is always just an
iCloud continuity app from my Macbook - like Safari or something.

I do have Siri app suggestions on the spotlight screen, those are typically
useless.

~~~
x3c
[http://blog.estimote.com/post/97824495825/ios-8-pushes-
locat...](http://blog.estimote.com/post/97824495825/ios-8-pushes-location-
context-to-a-new-level-lock)

It's context cum geofencing. I might be mistaken though.

~~~
mcintyre1994
You're right - looks like the same space is used for continuity/handoff and
for the suggested apps - I've never actually noticed a suggested app like
that.

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eranation
This is a much needed and welcome addition to enterprise / corporate users who
must use Outlook (I assume this is an outlook extension, right?)

Seeing so many Microsoft people on the board is encouraging as well.

I wish there were more startups focusing on enterprise users.

How are you planning to survive the long and costly sale cycles to
enterprises?

Are you planning also to have a gmail / other clients included?

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SlyShy
Wow does that UI ever look cluttered and claustrophobic. Doesn't seem like
they want anyone to actually read their email.

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wodenokoto
Looks like outlook (which it is) with a small window size.

[http://i.nextmedia.com.au/Features/Outlook-2013-Mail-.jpg](http://i.nextmedia.com.au/Features/Outlook-2013-Mail-.jpg)

~~~
eranknow
Its UI is like Outlook as it works on top of Outlook, keeping employees
communicating by email same as they regularly are.

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avner
Why post this when you can't even try it. What is the point?

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bushido
Been seeing a growing number of AI/Machine Learning for email entrants. The
outlook plugin looks like a feature that I've not seen with similar apps.

Another app that I've played around with recently is BrainBlox[0].

[0] [http://www.brainbloxapp.com/](http://www.brainbloxapp.com/)

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jamespo
the site provides so little details on the implementation, is it cloud hosted,
exchange plugin, ?

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pentium10
it's cloud based as they note SaaS: Conducts the “heavy lifting” algorithmic
analysis of the anonymized information and generates an updated mathematical
model for the client.

~~~
patates
...and there goes the whole German market out of the window.

~~~
eranknow
Knowmail supports localization per demand

~~~
bonoboTP
They mean that Germans are privacy-sensitive.

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geromek
How is this different from SaneBox.com ?

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wodenokoto
Different branding, different algorithm, has an outlook plugin, has a summary
function and different filters.

~~~
eranknow
It is also automated filtering and prioritization, as well as its aimed for
corporate with individuals receiving hundreds of daily emails, thus cannot
filter them semi-manually.

Furthermore, there are next-best-action features, as to save time, keep
organized and reduce noise...to move to appropriate folder automatically,
clean an email until a later (more appropriate time), mute yourself from a
conversation until named, etc.

