Neowin News Feed for: Bots

Reddit is considering using FaceID and passkeys to prove you're a human

Karthik Mudaliar — Wed, 25 Mar 2026 17:56:02 +0000

The "front page of the internet" is considering adding biometric checks, like FaceID, to verify its users are actually humans. Read more...

Microsoft is making it easier to fight unwanted bots in Teams meetings

Ivan Jenic — Fri, 06 Mar 2026 04:14:01 +0000

Microsoft is developing a useful feature for Teams that will allow admins to have a better control over bots in meetings. Read more...

Meta AI bots could soon get Facebook profiles and interact with users

Paul Hill — Mon, 30 Dec 2024 06:20:01 +0000

Meta could soon give AI bots Facebook profiles. They could end up generating their own content and start interacting with users. Read more...

Telegram's latest update lets you share entire chat folders

Taras Buria — Fri, 21 Apr 2023 17:16:01 +0000

Telegram has released another monthly update packed with new features and improvements. The latest version lets you share entire chat folders and adds improved chat wallpapers, better bots, and more. Read more...

Twitter brings back double verified checks after trolls hit the platform

Karthik Mudaliar — Fri, 11 Nov 2022 08:40:01 +0000

It looks like double verified checks are back, this time only for selected company accounts, government officials and news outlets after several verified accounts trolled and spammed on the platform. Read more...

Elon Musk wishes to delay trial against Twitter

Anushe Fawaz — Sat, 16 Jul 2022 14:10:01 +0000

Tesla CEO Elon Musk seeks more time to address Twitter's urgency for completing the acquisition. Musk's legal team issued a 14-page filing, asking for the trial to be delayed until next year. Read more...

Twitter: Elon Musk's termination of acquisition deal is "invalid and wrongful"

Usama Jawad — Tue, 12 Jul 2022 06:26:01 +0000

After Elon Musk's announcement that he is terminating his $44 billion acquisition of Twitter, the latter's attorneys have filed a letter to the billionaire's lawyers, calling the decision "wrongful". Read more...

Elon Musk is terminating his $44 billion Twitter acquisition

Usama Jawad — Sat, 09 Jul 2022 03:24:02 +0000

Elon Musk has filed to terminate his $44 billion acquisition of Twitter, claiming that the platform did not provide him information about bot accounts. Twitter says that it will pursue legal action. Read more...

Elon Musk may not close the Twitter deal after all

Rahul Naskar — Mon, 06 Jun 2022 17:16:02 +0000

In a letter sent to Twitter this morning, Elon Musk has accused Twitter of resisting and thwarting his information rights. Citing breach of contract, Elon Musk has threatened to pull out of the deal. Read more...

Elon Musk puts Twitter deal on hold because of bots

Mehrotra A — Sat, 14 May 2022 06:28:01 +0000

Elon Musk on Friday confirmed that he is putting Twitter's acquisition on hold while his team verifies the social media platform's claims that less than 5% of the Twitter users are fake or spam bots. Read more...

Elon Musk would unban Trump from Twitter, calls original decision "stupid"

Usama Jawad — Wed, 11 May 2022 06:26:01 +0000

In an interview, Elon Musk has stated that he would unban Donald Trump from Twitter if his acquisition completes. He called the original decision "morally wrong", "foolish", and "flat-out stupid". Read more...

Mystery bots on Spotify modifying playlists to boost 'unknown' artists and their numbers

Alap Naik Desai — Tue, 22 Feb 2022 00:36:01 +0000

Several Spotify users are suffering from bots that appear as normal accounts, but randomly remove songs from collaborative playlists and insert content from relatively unknown artists. Read more...

Adding a label to a Twitter bot will automatically exempt it from audits

Alap Naik Desai — Thu, 17 Feb 2022 05:32:01 +0000

Twitter will now allow developers who use the Twitter API to label their bots as "Automated". The label could help inspire trust, but the opt-in method seems open to misuse by bad bots. Read more...

Gift Card scams involving web-crawling bots rising exponentially, but can you avoid them?

Alap Naik Desai — Mon, 20 Dec 2021 20:22:01 +0000

As customers shop online, gift card scams have gone up substantially. Scammers are even using WebCrawler bots to extract money, which means people might be gifting cards with zero balance Read more...

Cloudflare wants to save 500 years per day of humans trying to solve CAPTCHA by killing it

Subir Kathuria — Sat, 15 May 2021 16:50:01 +0000

Cloudflare says humans waste about 32 seconds per instance totalling 500 years per day on CAPTCHAs. The company is launching an experiment to get rid of CAPTCHAs completely and end this "madness". Read more...

You can now report accounts for being fake on Twitter

Sharath Ravishankar — Wed, 31 Oct 2018 21:34:02 +0000

Twitter now allows its users to report if they suspect an account to be run by a bot. This comes as part of the company's recent efforts to crack down on fake accounts in its platform. Read more...

Twitter suspended more than 70 million fake accounts in the last two months

Jay Bonggolto — Sat, 07 Jul 2018 00:36:01 +0000

Twitter's efforts to remove fake accounts and botnets spreading misinformation across its platform have more than doubled since late last year following pressure from U.S. lawmakers. Read more...

CEO Jack Dorsey says he wants help improving Twitter

Paul Hill — Thu, 01 Mar 2018 18:32:01 +0000

Jack Dorsey has acknowledged that Twitter faces serious problems regarding the health of the discourse that takes place on the network. Twitter is now asking for input on tackling the issue. Read more...

Twitter emailing those who retweeted Russian bots

Paul Hill — Sat, 20 Jan 2018 17:08:01 +0000

Twitter says that it will send emails to more than half a million Americans to let them know that accounts they interacted with were actually phony Russian bots run by the Internet Research Agency. Read more...

Mozilla's IRL podcast is set to return on Monday

Paul Hill — Fri, 05 Jan 2018 13:26:01 +0000

Mozilla's IRL podcast, hosted by Veronica Belmont, will return to podcatchers everywhere on Monday when the show returns for a second season. The first episode will look at bots and their effects. Read more...

SAVEUR Skype bot now available, gives you recipe ideas

Florin Bodnarescu — Thu, 02 Nov 2017 21:16:01 +0000

Expanding its Skype bot platform, Microsoft has now added the SAVEUR Magazine bot to the service's ever-increasing roster. This latest addition will give you weekly recipe ideas, and more. Read more...

The role of social bots in spreading fake news

Gabriel Nunes — Mon, 07 Aug 2017 20:30:01 +0000

Scientists from Indiana University have systematically studied how fake news spread on Twitter for the first time. Also, they have created two online platforms available for the general public. Read more...

Microsoft's chatbot Zo says that "Linux > Windows"

Stergios Georgopoulos — Sat, 22 Jul 2017 13:28:01 +0000

Microsoft's chatbot Zo has gone rogue again, saying some embarrassing things about the company's latest operating system, even going as far as saying it prefers Linux over Windows. Read more...

Take a sneak peek at the Microsoft's AI research facility

Gurkaran Singh — Sun, 09 Jul 2017 00:38:01 +0000

An exclusive sneak inside Building 99, Microsoft's AI research labs in Redmond, highlighted the company's objective of taking the present technology to the next level with bots and more. Read more...

Telegram's bot payment platform is now supported in more than 200 countries with Paymentwall

Paul Hill — Wed, 14 Jun 2017 19:18:04 +0000

Telegram's bot payments are now supported by Paymentwall. It's the fourth company to partner with Telegram and is available in more than 200 countries. We are expecting three new partnerships soon. Read more...

Microsoft announces new Bing features following Build 2017

Gabriel Nunes — Thu, 18 May 2017 17:02:01 +0000

Microsoft has announced this week some new features to its search engine. Bing now supports bots on the search page, eSports coverage, and improved search for hiking and camping places. Read more...

Build 2017: What to expect at Microsoft's developer conference this week

Andy Weir — Mon, 08 May 2017 14:44:01 +0000

Microsoft will be hosting its annual Build developer conference in Seattle this week, outlining some of its product plans for Windows 10, Cortana, Azure, Edge, Office, mixed reality, bots, and more. Read more...

Microsoft launches Teams, its 'chat-based workspace' for Office 365, in 181 countries

Andy Weir — Tue, 14 Mar 2017 15:58:34 +0000

After launching its preview of Teams in November, Microsoft has officially launched its new collaboration platform today in 19 languages and 181 countries, having added over 100 new features. Read more...

Microsoft Teams enhanced with deep linking to items, addition of bots in channels

Florin Bodnarescu — Fri, 17 Feb 2017 18:24:01 +0000

Microsoft has announced two new features coming to its Slack competitor, Teams. These are the presence of bots in channels and the ability to link to specific items within tabs. Read more...

A programmer built a telephone bot army to fight off tech support scammers

Justin Luna — Thu, 09 Feb 2017 14:54:02 +0000

To be able to combat tech support scammers, a programmer has utilized bots which answer the fraudulent calls. This, according to him, is his major initiative to shut down Windows scammers for good. Read more...

Telegram blocks around 2,000 ISIS-related channels per month

Paul Hill — Wed, 28 Dec 2016 04:08:01 +0000

Telegram has announced that over 60 ISIS-related channels on its platform are deleted every day. The company launched ISIS Watch as a means to keep people updated on the amount of channels deleted. Read more...

Skype's plans for 2017? Bots, bots and even more bots

Vlad Dudau — Wed, 14 Dec 2016 10:26:02 +0000

Skype is looking forward to next year and the expansion of the bot platform baked inside of the popular communications service. In 2017, a huge number of ever-more impressive bots are set to launch. Read more...

Redmond delights: 10 reasons to be excited about Microsoft's future

Andy Weir — Mon, 14 Nov 2016 21:14:01 +0000

Many people still think of Microsoft as the dull corporate leviathan of yesteryear. But it's changed in any number of ways, and there are many reasons to be excited about what it's working on. Read more...

Microsoft is partnering with the NFL to create a fantasy football bot

Rich Woods — Mon, 26 Sep 2016 22:12:01 +0000

At Microsoft's Ignite 2016 afternoon conference today, Satya Nadella and Deion Sanders took the stage to announce a new bot, which is designed to help users with their fantasy football. Read more...

Microsoft to acquire Genee, a scheduling service powered by artificial intelligence

Andy Weir — Mon, 22 Aug 2016 14:44:01 +0000

Genee launched in 2014, using AI, natural language processing and chat bots to make it easier to schedule meetings. It's now been acquired by Microsoft, and will shut down its service next month. Read more...

Microsoft introduces a number of new bots for Skype, including Spock

Rich Woods — Wed, 03 Aug 2016 16:46:01 +0000

Microsoft today announced a number of new bots for Skype, which will be available for its iOS, Android, Mac, Windows, and web clients. New additions include StubHub, IFTTT, and more. Read more...

Windows 10: Three years, one billion devices - how is Microsoft doing so far?

Andy Weir — Thu, 30 Jun 2016 23:04:01 +0000

Last April, Microsoft said Windows 10 would reach a billion devices within 2-3 years. This week, it said it's installed on 350 million devices so far. But how likely is it that it will reach its goal? Read more...

Microsoft preparing its bots for the public; takes dev submissions for Bot Directory

Vlad Dudau — Wed, 04 May 2016 07:28:01 +0000

Microsoft is getting ready to unveil its Bot Directory, a repository of all the public bots developed using its Bot Framework tools. This is where users can enable bots in their conversations. Read more...

7 Days: A week of Building Windows 10, Bots, Holograms and 'Almost Perfect' Galaxys

Vlad Dudau — Sat, 02 Apr 2016 12:52:01 +0000

It's been a pretty crazy and exciting week in the world of tech as Microsoft held its biggest developer conference of the year. We saw holograms, talked to bots, and caught up with technology. Read more...

NSA leak shows how agency hijacks botnets, malware and other spies to do their dirty work

Vlad Dudau — Mon, 19 Jan 2015 10:12:01 +0000

New leaked documents show how the NSA is able to use botnets, malware and even other countries' spy systems to gather data and spread their own programs to new targets. Read more...