Bots won’t replace apps + more

1 minutes estimated reading time

Dan Grover | Bots won’t replace apps. Better apps will replace apps. – great analysis around conversational UIs and the designs of OTT messaging platforms from a a product manager at WeChat. The question I have is while bots won’t replace apps, will bots write better apps?

Chinese Conglomerate LeEco Wants To Give Away Its ‘Tesla Killer’ Electric Supercar For Free – Slashdot – going directly into zipcar type offerings. One has to wonder how stable the business is. LeEco has business across a wide range of business interests. It is curious how it will get on and how it is funded. More China related posts here.

Google Preps New Corporate Incubator — The Information – Google does Yahoo!’s Brockhouse model, even with Bradley Horowitz onboard again (paywall). It will be interesting to see where this takes Google. Historically innovations like Gmail, Orkut and Google Reader were invented within the business. Though a lot of Google’s advertising business came from outside the business or relied on intellectual property held by Yahoo!.

Bangladesh Bank exposed to hackers by cheap switches, no firewall: police | Reuters – did not have a firewall and used second-hand, $10 switches to network computers connected to the SWIFT global payment network. Hacking is about being slow and methodical rather than being completely ‘elite’. This was quite shocking. I suspect this bank won’t be the only one with this kind of set-up.

Business Forecasting & Planning Software | Quantrix – best spreadsheet ever. Interesting modelling capabilities, but I am skeptical of it being a cloud service.

The top 100 most expensive keywords in the UK: new research | Search Engine Watch – I was expecting to see insurance and mortgages dominate. Previously insurance companies had over-paid for leads. Instead it was gambling, and financial instruments that are close to gambling as to be indistinguishable, big data related technology and legal representation for compensation claims.