It’s bots all the way down: Howdy launches to build a better Slackbot

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You know a piece of technology has really made it when it creates a booming cottage industry that is designed to support it. The latest company to achieve that seems to be messaging app Slack, which has seemingly attracted curious entrepreneurs willing to build upon its ecosystem of workplace communication, GIFs and emojis. Enter Howdy, a new “workplace assistant” that just closed a seed round with participation from Bloomberg Beta, True Ventures, Betaworks, and Outlier, among others. In its launch-day blog post, XOXOCO co-founder Ben Brown says the company is bullish on the development of bots within the Slack ecosystem: With…

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Google Maps for Android adds navigation detours, cheapest gas nearby

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Google Maps on Android is about to get a lot more convenient: you’ll soon be able to find the cheapest gas around you and add detours to your route. Over the “next few weeks,” an update to the Android app will allow you to view gas stops along your route, including their price for regular-grade fuel, as well as how long much time the detour will add to your planned trip. Speaking of detours, you can now tap a magnifying glass icon at the top right corner of your screen to pull up a few floating action buttons for potential…

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Giphy launches its own super-easy, do-it-yourself GIF creator

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In addition to searching for goofy GIFs on Giphy, the company is encouraging you to create your own. With the release of a brand new GIF Maker tool, Giphy is guaranteeing a steady stream of user-generated content, helping the GIF supply stay fresh and targeted. While there are a number of online GIF creation tools out there that let you assemble nice looking GIFs for your email, chat room or social media pages — Imgur’s new video to GIF converter and Gifs.com come to mind as immediate examples — GIF Maker fits into Giphy’s broader vision of being a complete GIF resource accompanying its website, Chrome browser…

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The New York Times is sending over 1m Google Cardboard headsets to subcribers

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The New York Times is trying something a little different to ramp up its readership: virtual reality. The newspaper will be sending over a million Google Cardboard sets to its subscribers so they can try out its new virtual reality app – mostly print customers, but a ‘selection of Times digital subscribers’ as well. Along with the VR app, to be released on November 5, the NYT will debut a documentary called ‘The Displaced,’ which follows the stories of children affected by war. You can also expect a couple more films later in the year, as well as some 360-degree…

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1Password boosts security to avoid potential data leaks

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1Password is changing the way it encrypts users data in an attempt to keep metadata protected. The move comes after Dale Myers, a sofware engineer at Microsoft, exposed the password manager’s vulnerabilities. Myers post showed that the file formats being used by 1Password were not encrypted, meaning people who use the 1PasswordAnywhere service were having their login details saved in plain text, which isn’t ideal. The reason 1Password hasn’t been encrypting its metadata is because when it first started out in 2008, it was unmanageable to decrypt users saved URLs every time someone wanted to access one. This isn’t really…

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LinkedIn brings Pulse to the Apple Watch

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You can consume LinkedIn’s news-focused Pulse app via a handy wrist-sized interface, as the company announced today that Pulse is available for Apple Watch. Reading on the Apple Watch, and other smart watches, is something that should be done in short bursts. Pulse accommodates for that by offering the ‘Top 10’ headlines in the app, along with summaries that invite the user to read more about the article on their iPhone. The app also provides notifications for breaking news, and a ‘Glance’ mode designed to surface the most important or relevant article at the time. There’s also the option to save…

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The AI that writes articles for you is now available for testing

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Automated Insights has opened up beta access to Wordsmith, its platform for automating repetitive, time-consuming writing tasks using your data. Wordsmith reads data that you upload, such as a CSV file of a company’s quarterly earnings, and follows a story structure that you define to generate readable content on-the-fly. That includes financial reports, easily digestible bill statements, product descriptions and even summaries of Game of Thrones battles. Wordsmith takes your data, follows your writing style and turns it into readable content The Verge notes that Wordsmith lets you create complex stories out of your data with branching paths that describe your input.…

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BBC is cracking down on people who use VPNs to access iPlayer

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In a surprising, but somewhat expected move, the BBC today reportedly began cracking down on users that access its iPlayer service via a VPN from outside the United Kingdom. The move comes ahead of the expected launch of iPlayer in the US in the near future, but has locked out users worldwide who leverage services like Hola to access iPlayer. A BBC spokesperson told The Register that it “regularly makes updates to our technology to help prevent access to BBC iPlayer from outside the UK, which breaks our terms of use.” If you try to stream with a VPN switched on, you’ll now…

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Launchify for Android knows which apps you’ll need next and puts them on your lock screen

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I use a bunch of different apps through the day on my Android phone, and placing their icons on my home screen makes it look cluttered and doesn’t leave much room for gestures that launch actions. Launchify offers a solution in the form of a handy shortcut bar that lives in your notifications and lock screen and lets you quickly fire up apps that you use frequently. Launchify puts smart app shortcuts in your lock screen and notification bar, keeping your home screen clutter-free There are other apps that do this too, but Launchify takes things a step further by…

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