The Joey filled in the 'To:' field and skipped to the next line. It had already filled in the 'From:' and 'Date:' fields automatically.

"Subject?" the Joey said.

"Meeting confirmation."

The Joey considered this for a few seconds and then the monthly calendar view appeared on the screen, layered above the e-mail form.

"Do you mean your meeting scheduled for this Friday?"

"Yes."

The Joey automatically keyed in the subject field with: "Meeting
Confirmation, July sixth."

"Dear Peter," the Joey said, then "Please begin your message,
William."

William recited a brief note, saying that he was looking forward to the upcoming meeting. When he was done, he covered the microphone with his hand again and turned to Byron. "How do I tell it I'm done?"

"Just say it's name first, and it will know that you want to give it a command. That's why we named this one Pip. It's a word it would probably never encounter in your normal correspondence and so it knows that you are talking to it, rather than giving it text to put on the screen."