How to Build (automated, no code) Chatbots with Microsoft Power Virtual Agents

A Microsoft Mechanics episode that I found very interesting discussing Microsoft Power Virtual Agents showing you an example of a finished interactive bot application and then how to build it. 

If you are new to Power Virtual Agents, it's Microsoft's newest member of the Power Platform. The Power Platform is Microsoft's family of tools for low-to-zero-code modern app development, process automation, business insights, and now – chatbots. Interested in testing it out for yourself? Go to powervirtualagents.microsoft.com 

Meet Root: The Robot that Brings Coding to Life

Here is a very interesting program presented by Harvard’s Wyss Institute that is providing a robot that can be controlled via a app and travels on a school’s whiteboard, making drawings primarily but it is being controlled on several different levels of programming platforms. This is an interesting video discussing this new concept.

Microsoft announces at the Build Conference a new Windows 10 app converter

We always get a lot of interesting information from Microsoft from the Build Conference and this announcement should make some software writers happy to see some extra help coming from MS to convert the programs to be compatiblewith Windows 10.

"Project Centennial enables you to take your existing .NET or Win32 applications and distribute them through the Windows Store, while also enhancing them with the new device capabilities," said Microsoft Windows exec Kevin Gallo.

The "Project Centennial" app converter allows developers to easily convert legacy Win32 programs into Windows 10 compatible apps. This means that .exe and even .msi files used on older OS like Windows 7 can be seamlessly transformed into the AppX format used by Windows 10, and then be put on the Windows Store.

This should be available soon to members of the Windows Developer Preview Program. 

Update on Monday, April 4, 2016 at 12:57PM by Bob Appleby

I was reading in SuperSite for Windows article about what this tool means for the Microsoft world. It shows how serious Microsoft is about their new universal platform that will allow applications to run on any Windows 10 device. So with this tool you can convert applications to this new format and be able to run the application on Windows 10 workstations, tablets, phones and the Xbox. I this will give the opportunity of bringing over 16 million Win 32 applications into this environment.