Gone are the days for boring apps wherein you just type something then click here click there gone are the days staring blankly on an app or website where there is minimal interaction, bots are the future…. or I’m just getting ahead of myself. Last Microsoft build Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft talked about the possible impacts of Bots in our daily life. He envisioned that the future of computing will revolve on three main actors: Humans, digital assistants and bots. So what are bots ? According to Nadella, Bots are like new applications that people can interact with. With the age of digital assistants booming right now bots can exist as the middle app between humans and assistants or possibly in the near future with other systems like IOT. Nadella also introduced their own bot framework called Microsoft Bot Framework.
MICROSOFT BOT FRAMEWORK
Microsoft Bot Framework provides set of tools needed to build and connect bots that communicate wherever users are communicating like talking, texting through services like Skype, Slack, Office 365 and other popular services. Bot Framework gives a more intelligent aspect of your created applications through the automatic translations, user and conversation state management, debugging tools, and embedded web chat control. Basically the bot framework is divided into three parts one is the Bot Connector, Bot Builder SDKs and the Bot Directory.
BOT CONNECTOR
Bot Connector is one of the bot framework of Microsoft where in it lets your existing bot connect to the different communication channels (Telegram, SMS, email and others). Currently in order to use the said framework you just need to register
you bot then select the medium of channel you want to use then publish it in the Bot Directory.
BOT BUILDER SDK
Bot Builder is also a subset of the Bot Framework by Microsoft where in it lets you build and customize your own dialog with your bots in either C# or Node.js platform.
BOT DIRECTORY
Then lastly the Bot Directory where in it is a public listing of certified bots registered through the Bot Connector. Users can try and also register their own bots based on the Bot Directory. Currently you can already check the Bot Directory because it already features some famous bots using Microsoft cognitive services like Vision Bot, Bing Image
bot Murphy Bot and others.
CONCLUSION
Microsoft Bot Framework is like Conversation as Platform by Microsoft that helps programmers in giving intelligence to their created apps by tapping in with communication services like SMS, emails or with API’s like Microsoft Cognitive services. Like what Nadella said It’s not about Man versus the Machine but instead Man with Machine.
Code Unboxing 