Letizia: An Agent That Assists Web Browsing
Henry Lieberman

Media Laboratory
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Cambridge, MA, USA
lieber@media.mit.edu

Abstract

Letizia is a user interface agent that assists a user browsing the World Wide Web. As the user operates a conventional Web browser such as Netscape, the agent tracks user behavior and attempts to anticipate items of interest by doing concurrent, autonomous exploration of links from the user's current position. The agent automates a browsing strategy consisting of a best-first search augmented by heuristics inferring user interest from browsing behavior.

"Letizia Avarez de Toledo has observed that this vast library is useless: rigorously speaking, a single volume would be sufficient, a volume of ordinary format, printed in nine or ten point type, containing an infinite number of infinitely thin leaves."

- Jorge Luis Borges, The Library of Babel