Microsoft Build: the 10 most important announcements — from theverge.com by Ben Popper and Dieter Bohn
Here come the bots!
Excerpt (emphasis DSC):
Every year, Microsoft holds a developer event called “Build.” And recently, those events have gone from snoozers to exciting showcases. Microsoft has a winner with Windows 10 (as long as you ignore the phones), a robust personal assistant in Cortana (that works just fine on a laptop), and a wild holographic future to plan with HoloLens. It’s a lot to take in, and at this year’s Build Microsoft we got updates on all of it. And a few surprises.
Going in, we weren’t totally sure what would be coming next for Windows 10, but it turns out there’s a lot that Microsoft has planned. It’s not just that there are new apps, there are also new bots, which will help people handle all sorts of small tasks. In fact, those bots and Microsoft’s vision of how they should work stole the entire show. Windows, Xbox: you’re cool, but the future is bots.
Why Microsoft wants to help developers build bots — from pcworld.com by Blair Hanley Frank
Conversations are cross-platform and mobile, even when Windows 10 Mobile isn’t winning
Excerpt:
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella is pushing developers to create virtual assistants and intelligent chatbots to help users do everything from managing their calendars to booking hotel reservations.
To that end, Microsoft has published a new Bot Framework, which makes it easier to build chatbots using either C# or Node.js. Working with the tools isn’t so easy that anyone could do it, but they can help reduce some of the difficulties of conversing with a computer.
It was one of the main announcements from Nadella’s keynote address at Microsoft’s Build developer conference Wednesday.
Also see:
- Microsoft’s Build 2016 message: ‘we love Cortana’ (but should users?) — from thenextweb.com by Nate Swanner
Excerpt:
Build 2016 has one clear takeaway: Cortana is what matters, at least for now. At almost every product or service announcement at this morning’s keynote, Microsoft made a point to mention that it would also work with Cortana. At a deep dive event for press later in the day, Microsoft further highlighted its commitment to the digital assistant.
. - Microsoft’s new Bot Framework will let anyone build assistants for their apps — thenextweb.com by Napier Lopez
From DSC:
Questions/relevance for those working higher ed:
- Are Computer Science programs able to keep up with the pace of these Human Computer Interaction (HCI)-related changes? The changes in AI/cognitive computing? Are courses being created to address these new skills? These developments also impact those teaching about user experience design, application/product design, and more.
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- How will such personal assistants be used by the students? By faculty members?