A lot of interesting announcements have come out of the first two days of the Microsoft Build Conference which began on March 30th and will end on April 1st (although the post-build hackathon ends on Saturday, April 2nd). Included in the many announcements made by Microsoft at the conference were the launch of the Microsoft Bot Framework, the launch of Microsoft Cognitive Services, and the addition of Cortana and chatbots to Skype.
The Microsoft Bot Framework consists of a Bot Connector, Bot Builder SDKs, and a Bot Directory (Bot Directory is coming soon). The framework allows developers to build and connect intelligent bots that can interact with application users. Interactions can take place via text/SMS, Slack, Office 365 mail, and other services.
At the time of this writing, it appears that the Bot Builder SDKs are for building bots with Node.js and C#. According to the Bot Framework FAQ, it is possible to build a chatbot with the Microsoft Bot Framework without using the SDKs. This allows other languages, like Python for example, to be supported. However, the bot has to be capable of providing a REST endpoint that can be called by the Bot Connector in order to avoid using the SDKs.
Microsoft also announced at the Build Conference the launch of Microsoft Cognitive Services (formerly Project Oxford), a suite of APIs that developers can use to build applications powered by algorithms that can perform computer vision, speech recognition, text analytics, recommendations, and other cognitive tasks. Microsoft has rebranded Project Oxford as Microsoft Cognitive Services and has added new capabilities such as Emotion, Language Understanding and Bing Search to many of the existing APIs.
Another announcement at the Microsoft Build Conference was the addition of Cortana and chatbots to Skype. Skype Bots allow developers to add new and engaging ways for users to interact with Skype applications. The Skype Bots are able to work together with Cortana, Microsoft’s voice-controlled intelligent assistant. With Cortana and Skype Bots working together, developers can build applications that are integrated with Skype and allow users to complete voice-activated tasks such as searching for information or managing a calendar without having to leave Skype.
The Microsoft Bot Framework, Microsoft Cognitive Services, and Skype Bots are all currently in preview. For more information about these new services, visit the Microsoft Bot Framework, Cognitive Services, and Skype Developer websites.
Telegram, a cloud-based mobile and desktop messaging application provider, has released Telegram Bot API 2.0, a major update to the Telegram Bot Platform featuring new capabilities such as inline keyboards, on-the-fly message editing, location requests, and phone number requests. Inline bots have also been significantly upgraded and now feature text substitution, inline mode and private chat switching capabilities, and support for the 19 types of available Telegram content. Bots have become very popular with developers and others in the technology industry. Major technology companies like Microsoft and Facebook have both recently launched bot frameworks for developers.
Telegram is a free, cloud-based messaging application that allows users to send messages and share files securely and reliably. The platform allows users to share all types of files, create groups, write to phone contacts, search phone contacts, and more. According to the company FAQ page, the Telegram application is "like SMS and email combined." Telegram also features a bot platform for developers to create third-party bots that run inside of the Telegram application. The Telegram Bot API allows developers to control their bots with HTTPS requests.
The latest release of the Telegram Bot API, includes a number of new features and improvements. New inline keyboards have been added that can be integrated directly into messages. These new inline keyboards support callback buttons, URL buttons and switch to inline buttons. Bots can now edit their messages "on-the-fly" and are now capable of requesting a user's location and phone number.
Inline bots have also been significantly upgraded and can send all types of content available in Telegram. There are currently 19 types of available content including documents, contacts, locations, videos, MP3s, stickers, and animations. Telegram has built a number of sample bots to demonstrate some of the capabilities of the Telegram bot platform. At the time of this writing, available sample bots include @music, @youtube, @foursquare and @sticker.
For more information about the Telegram Bot Platform and API, visit https://telegram.org/.
Telegram is a free cloud-based messaging app that provides synchronised access to your chats across platforms. The service has opened its code to everyone, allowing developers to build their own tools using the developer API. Another feature of the platform is the ability to build bots that perform any function you program it to via the Telegram Bot API.
These bots are simply Telegram accounts operated by third-party applications, and often boasting AI features, to handle messages automatically. Users can interact with bots by sending messages, commands, or inline requests, to perform a particular task, such as check the weather, translate text, play media or pass commands to IoT devices, among many others.
This tutorial by Ardian Haxha on the SitePoint blog shows followers how to quickly create a Telegram bot in Ruby. The tutorial begins with signing up for an account and creating a new bot, then using the telegram-bot-ruby gem to interact with the bot API. After setting up a dedicated file for the contents, followers must import the gem and add the API token generated earlier.
Followers will then have to search for the bot on the Telegram platform, but it will appear in the search results by name. Hitting the ‘Start’ button initiates the /start command, which should contain a welcome message and some general information about the bot, such as tasks it performs and commands it understands.
The author set up a /sitepoint command to issue a welcome note and display a link to SitePoint’s website, as well as a/send_location method for marking a point on the map. All code is provided at the end, making this tutorial an ideal starting point for building custom bots to perform almost any function.
