"Bob" the Bot: Bob the Bot

NEW YORK, Jan 25 — Virtual reality (VR) is about to get a boost when Oculus Rift debuts in the market. According to the developers, the headset is available for preorder and will be shipped in the second quarter of 2016.
The headset, which is touted to be the hottest development in the realm of computer and console gaming, has been in development for several years and is billed as the greatest leap in VR technology in the present day.
Check out the video to find out important facts about the Oculus Rift headset, including what you can do with it, how much it costs, and the people behind the creation of this potentially revolutionary device.
- See more at: http://www.themalaymailonline.com/tech-gadgets/article/10-things-you-need-to-know-about-oculus-rift-video#sthash.inRqlpkc.dpuf

Thursday, 17 March 2016

The 17 best bots on Twitter

Counted among Twitter’s 271 million active users are an untold numberof bots. These accounts were created by people with a pulse but tweet without human intervention. Some are handy, others beautiful, many peculiar. Bots, it should be said, are some of the most productive members of Twitter’s society.

But while humans are showered with praise for their tweets, bots have not traditionally received the same love. Never again! We have compiled a list of Twitter’s best bots.

To determine eligibility, we didn’t perform a Turing test but did require that the account be automated (sorry, @Horse_ebooks) and still actively tweeting. Where it was possible to determine the bot’s creator, we noted it here, but who’s to say those people aren’t actually bots themselves?

continue here : qz.com

Tuesday, 15 March 2016

Choosing a Chat Bot

One of the latest trends on Twitch right now is having a Twitch chat bot that provides different functions in your chat. While many of these bots can be helpful, there are certain features that I would personally not vouch for if you’re looking to grow the size of your stream. Today, we’ll discuss some of the more popular bots and big no-no’s if you intend to use them!

Nightbots, and Moobots, and Xanbots, Oh My!

If you’ve decided that you want to have some sort of bot in your chat the next step in the process is choosing which bot you want to use. There are quite a few options out there so deciding on one can be somewhat difficult. Thankfully, Twitch User dhamster has compiled a really nice comparison spreadsheet that goes over all the functions of the most popular bots! You can check out the spreadsheet here.

*Note – this sheet is a little outdated, and dhamster has told me he might be updating it soon, but a lot of the info is still relevant.*

Here’s my quick summary of the three most popular bots:

XanBot

Pros: Anti-Spam, Raffles, Completely Free, Timed Messages
Cons: No Dashboard bot set up run mostly through chat use, Display only Song Requests

NightBot

Pros: Enhanced Song Requests, Anti-Spam, Raffles, Helpful Dashboard, Timed Messages
Cons: No Sub Notifier, Some features require you to pay

MooBot

Pros: Anti-Spam, Raffles, Helpful Dashboard, Timed Messages
Cons: Some Features require you to pay, Display only Song Requests

I personally use Moobot due to how easy it is to set up for my stream. Just go to moobot.tv and link your twitch account, and you’ll be able to manage the bot in its entirety from the easy to use dashboard on the website.

Commands Are Your Friend

So once you’ve chosen a bot, it’s time to customize it to your liking. One of the best features of any popular bot on Twitch is the command option. Commands allow you to give out information that your viewers want to know, without you having to talk about the information every time someone asks in your stream. Information like your social media links, what game you’re playing, how long you’ve been streaming, or any FAQ about your stream can all be added as commands for most bots. By simply assigning a command such as !links, users will be able to easily access this important information.

If there are certain commands that you want your viewers seeing all the time, you can add a timer so that the bot always posts the information over a given interval. Be careful with how often you set the timer. I would always recommend that the timers are separated by at least 20 minutes otherwise they will take up the whole chat.

Bots can also be used to moderate your chat and time users out who spam and cause a ruckus in your chat. While this option is very helpful for huge streams that average over 5000 viewers, I would say it’s definitely not necessary for a small stream.

Fudge Muffins

If there is one big suggestion that I would make, it would be to stay away from any type of feature that rewards people for spamming. I see a lot of streams that have bots that allow users to continuously win imaginary things like cookies, muffins, tokens, and then use these monetary objects to purchase imaginary prizes. Do not do this! If I’m a new viewer and I come into a stream I want to chat in, and all I see spam commands being used, I’m going to have no desire to chat. While it may seem that these bots are getting your users involved in the chat, it’s actually creating an atmosphere for no interaction.

I used to have a bot for a game I called pieBux. Whenever someone would put the !piebux command in after a certain amount of time, they would either randomly gain or lose piebux. At the end of the month, whoever had the most would win a steam game. While this was a cool idea at first, it quickly turned into huge amounts of spam where everyday viewers actually complained and left. Learn from my mistakes and avoid these types of games.

Conclusion

Overall, I would say bots are a good addition to a small stream that is looking to grow. They can provide important information to your viewers that allow you to focus on playing the game instead of answering the same question over and over. They can also be used to facilitate cool functions such as song requests and raffles. Just be mindful of how they affect your chat in regards to spam. Having fun bot commands that include inside jokes in your stream are perfectly fine, but as you grow they can be harder to manage. At the end of the day, if you don’t feel like having a bot in your stream you’re not losing out on too much, so it really comes down to what you prefer.

courtesy by : streambig

Friday, 11 March 2016

Bots are battling for restaurant reservations in San Francisco

Online reservations are supposed to make snagging a table a breeze, but when it comes to in-demand restaurants, the process is going the way of stock trading and concerts on Ticketmaster: Pretty soon you’re going to get beaten by bots, big time.

Diogo Mónica, a security engineer at payment start-up Square, was trying to find a seat at the popular San Francisco eatery State Bird Provisions on the restaurant reservation site Urbanspoon. Tables can be booked up to 60 days in advance, with new time slots opening up every day at 4:00 a.m. By 4:01, they were gone. “It quickly became obvious,”he wrote on his blog, “that these were reservation bots at work.”

To retaliate, Ars Technica reports, Mónica wrote his own computer code to check for available reservations and grab them on his behalf. “You fight fire with fire,” he said, “so I made my own reservation bot.” At last, a table was his. He then released the code online to level the playing field—at least for anyone who knows how to run a ruby script.

It’s a great story and a win for Mónica, but it’s not exactly a happy ending. With bots fighting bots, we’re setting ourselves up for a world in which the hottest restaurant reservations can only be purchased from scalpers at exorbitant prices. Mónica, for his part, joked on Twitter that he will have to take a page from high-frequency traders for the next round of battle: Now that everyone has access to his code, he’ll have to set up shop as close as possible to the reservation system’s server to beat everyone else by a microsecond or two.

courtesy by : qz.com

Wednesday, 9 March 2016

The Sims 3 Into the Future: Trait Chips List and Features of Trait Chips for Plumbots

The Sims 3 Into the Future introduced Plumbots, which can be fitted with Trait Chips to customize their behavior and capabilities. This list of Trait Chips will describe the benefit of each chip and list the components you'll need to assemble them (Nanites, Small-Large Blank Processors and Crystal Flowers).

Designing the Ultimate Plumbot
Given there are a total of 21 Trait Chips, there are a lot of possibilities to designing your Plumbot's abilities and this is my own opinion. My personal favorite setup would be the Sentience Trait Chip, Solar Powered, Efficient, Limitless Learning, Simulated Emotions, Competent Cleaner, and Office Drone. That would make the Plumbot like a regular Sim only much better at everything they do and capable of doing it longer. You could learn any Skills that are needed around the home very quickly and even pursue a Career. Plumbots with this setup would get big raises at the top level of a Career Track or perform any other Skill that earns money.

My example Plumbot would still lack in the Social Abilities department, but be very competent at earning money and supporting the home. The good news is, that Trait Chips can be swapped out at any time. Any Skills or Skill Challenges completed are kept and the Plumbot can adjust its own Trait Chips if you put them in its Inventory.

Learning More About Plumbots
You should definitely read the Bot Making and Plumbots Guides as well, because learning how to make them and the other features of Plumbots are discussed there. This article focuses on Trait Chips themselves.

Trait Chips List: Components and Chip Descriptions

Plumbots with the Sense of Humor Trait Chip can Perform Comedy Shows for others

courtesy by : carlssims3guide