But Marsbot is important for other reasons, too. She represents a different kind of bot than the ones you see in Facebook Messenger — one that’s proactive rather than passive. She’s not a chatbot, but an interruptive bot. Crowley says that most other bots are in the model of Aladdin’s lamp: you invoke them and the genie … Continue reading Marsbot Is Your New Scarlett
My partner Merianna was preaching at a nearby church last month and she needed a time estimate for the drive that Sunday morning. We googled the church and got the address. While on the results page, I noticed their “Hours” stated they were closed. It was a Sunday. That felt… peculiar. It wasn’t intentional, … Continue reading The Importance of Getting Your Details Correct
Bryan Richardson, Android software engineer at stable|kernel, wants you to consider this: what if firefighters could wear a helmet that could essentially see through the walls, indicating the location of a person in distress? What if that device could detect the temperature of a wall? In the near future, the amount of information that will be … Continue reading Why augmented reality’s future is more practical and rational than you realize
Further confirming the notion that your website address really doesn’t matter that much anymore, I present linkmoji. Enjoy. Continue reading www.🍕💩.ws
We are the place for book lovers to discover amazing books from a wide variety of topics. All lovingly hand-curated by people who know and love reading. Source: ShelfJoy Interesting messaging bot for Facebook Messenger that was just released today. Once you add Shelfjoy to Messenger, you “chat” with it to discover books in various … Continue reading ShelfJoy: Clever use of messaging and affiliate marketing
By signing up to play Pokemon Go through Google, many iOS users have unknowingly exposed all of their emails, chats, calendars, documents and more to the game’s developer and third-parties. Source: Pokemon Go catches all your Google data (here’s how to stop it) | Cult of Mac I’ve been thinking a good deal about this … Continue reading Pokemon Go snatches all of your Google data
Courtbot was built with the city of Atlanta in partnership with the Atlanta Committee for Progress to simplify the process of resolving a traffic citation. After receiving a citation, people are often unsure of what to do next. Should they should appear in court, when should they appear, how much will the fine cost, or … Continue reading Our AI Assisted (Near) Future
“We find it troubling that you are asking for exemptions to the rules we apply to all developers, and are publicly resorting to rumors and half-truths about our service,” it reads. “Spotify’s app was again [i.e. after being resubmitted on June 10] rejected for attempting to circumvent in-app purchase rules, and not, as you claim, … Continue reading Apple fires back against Spotify
I’m looking forward to seeing what they — and the many great writers who’ve contributed to The Toast — do next. (At least two are working for my campaign!) As we look back at what this site has meant to so many of you, I hope you’ll also look forward and consider how you might … Continue reading Wow, Hillary just won the internet.
Spotify declined to comment; Apple hasn’t responded to request for comment. For the past year, Spotify has argued publicly, and to various regulators in the U.S. and Europe, that Apple’s subscription policies effectively punish third-party music services that use Apple’s platform, while boosting Apple Music, the home-grown service it launched in June 2015. Source: Spotify … Continue reading Spotify and Apple at odds
Evernote has been one of the leading note-taking services for some time, with clients for the Web and every major OS. The company recently announced sweeping changes to its “freemium” pricing strategy, which puts a big limit on the “free” tier and raises prices across the board for new and existing users. Source: Evernote limits free tier … Continue reading Thoughts on Evernote’s price hike
“I can’t speak for you, but I’m writing this editorial on my everyday productivity tool — the iPad Pro. It’s what I like to think of as the “computer for the rest of us”. It’s already incredibly functional and I can’t wait to see iOS 10 up and running on it.” Source: iPad Pro is … Continue reading iPad Pro is the new Mac
There seems to be a real disconnect between what Facebook actually is and what it purports to be. Mark Zuckerberg has said publicly that Facebook is a neutral platform which “stands for giving everyone a voice.” But it’s clear that Facebook is willing to vote with its wallet to make some of those voices louder … Continue reading Facebook isn’t a neutral platform
Amid protest, song and fears of a denominational breakup, United Methodists at their quadrennial General Conference decided yet again not to decide anything regarding LGBT rights. But in a groundbreaking move, the delegates from the U.S. and abroad voted 428-405 on Wednesday (May 18) to allow the church’s Council of Bishops to appoint a commission to … Continue reading The Death of the Denominations
It was like affirmative action for conservatives. When did conservatives start demanding quotas AND diversity training AND less people from Ivy League Colleges. I sat there, looking around the room at ‘our side’ wondering, ‘Who are we?’ Who am I? I want to be very clear — I am not referring to every person in the room. … Continue reading The Conservative’s Tituba
Just as Venmo has inspired stinginess in some, it’s prompted generosity in others. Nielsen says that the women in a large, secret Facebook group she manages have used it in the past to buy dinner for a group member who has had a bad day, while others have used Venmo to quickly–and discreetly–send rent money … Continue reading Venmo Jerks?
Here we go! Continue reading Android N Beta with Project Fi
I’m really hoping Allo (and Duo) takes off… a couple of really innovative features in there not to mention an encrypted “Incognito” mode… Google is announcing a new messaging app today. It’s called Allo and its main feature is a Google assistant that’s built right in. Google says it’ll be available later this summer — … Continue reading Google’s Allo Messenger
Take a picture of a textbook page and instantly get summaries, analyses, videos, flashcards and annotations. Source: Summize I’ve been playing with this new app this morning. It’s … interesting and has caused me to stop and think. And to think… I had months (if not years) of instruction time at elementary, middle, high … Continue reading Learning to Summize?
We’ve seen lots of cool shit built on the web, but we’ve also seen lots of bullshit too: barriers to entry, walled gardens, gatekeepers. Some things have been made unnecessarily complex. We need to remember that at its core a web page is simple. That’s the beauty of it. And when you publish your own … Continue reading In praise of webmasters