Facebook recently made a big deal about their new Messenger Bots, and they’re not the only ones. Bots are about to take over the world. Or… at least our social world.
Bots are apps that can respond to you through natural language input, be it speech or text. For example, you can start chatting to a CNN bot and get headlines about the topics you’re interested in. Start a conversation with a weather app and get important weather updates as you need them. Microsoft has also prioritized bots, and hopes that developers will start integrating them into Windows Universal Platform applications.
The idea is that we can have automated “conversations” in order to get information we want and need quickly, and without any human interaction.
On one hand, this is great. We don’t have to bother anyone to accomplish what we want. On the other hand, this can potentially be detrimental to our human interaction. Bots respond immediately. Are we setting ourselves up to hate interacting with a real person who doesn’t respond quickly? Are we setting ourselves up for our bosses to expect an immediate response from us when we’re trying to spend time with our family? We’d love to hear your thoughts on that.
So, should you be diving into the world of bots? If you’re usually an early adopter, sure. Just be ready for some hiccups. If you like things to just work then I’d wait on any Facebook Messenger bots for a while. You’d be safe getting a weather bot from Kik or checking out their Kik Bot Store to see if anything piques your interest.
Apple is less than a day away from launching its highly anticipated OLED MacBook Pro with a touch-sensitive screen. But it appears that the upgrade is going to cost a pretty penny. According to a report by Bloomberg, Apple is reportedly eyeing a starting price of $2,899 for the 14-inch MacBook Pro, while the 16-inch version could start at $3,399 in the US.
"At $2,899, the 14-inch model would mark the highest starting price for a new MacBook Pro model, surpassing the $2,799 Apple charged for a 17-inch version introduced in 2006," says the report. The report claims that Apple is targeting a minimum price hike of $400 for its upcoming redesigned 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro models.
I've spent a good amount of time digging into the spec sheet of the new M6 MacBook Pro (14-inch), and for all intents and purposes, this is a classic Apple "chip and connectivity" refresh. It's not a full redesign. The chassis, Liquid Retina XDR panel, speakers, ports, and battery, all of them carry over unchanged.
However, the M6 brings more cores, stronger on-device AI, higher memory bandwidth on the larger configs, and modern wireless. Here’s the practical rundown of what actually improved, and whether those gains are worth your money.
Two new highly requested iCloud plugins just got added to ChatGPT, giving people who rely on Apple’s Mail and Calendar services a way to search emails, check appointments, and manage their schedules directly through the chatbot.
The integration is rolling out to all ChatGPT plans, including the free tier. You can access it on the web, desktop, and iOS.