Light Start – Android N, parking ticket chatbot, Tesla’s Golden Tickets, and Bioshock: The Collection
Brett Venter
Android N has officially become Android Nougat
The next piece of confectionary from Google has been named at last. Such a shame they couldn’t get Elon Musk and Tesla involved in some sort of cross-promotion (see below). Android N has become Android Nougat, which wasn’t a very hard jump to make. There are a limited number of treats that start with the letter N. Nougat is expected to be out later on this year and while having an official designation won’t change the flavour of the newest version of Android any, it does feel more official now that it’s got more than a letter describing it. It’s more than just its title, of course, as we can expect support for multi-tasking and also Google’s VR effort Daydream when Nougat launches later this year.
Watch a chatbot robot lawyer at work drafting letters for clients
Perhaps you, like us, are on the fence about chatbots. It’s nothing personal but we’ve used a whole lot of automated systems and trying to get a computer to understand a query is like teaching a moose to play table tennis. You can do it but it’s going to take a while and ALL the patience. But perhaps there’s hope. Joshua Browder, a 19-year-old, has created what he calls the “…world’s first robot lawyer”. Which would be a lofty claim if it hadn’t already challenged and succeeded in getting parking tickets voided. In London. And New York City. Browder claims that some 160,000 queries have been put to the chatbot and that there’s a roughly 60% success rate for its queries. Based on the video above, the process seems simple enough. Simple enough that you don’t need to hire an actual lawyer, at least, but if we’re ever up for something more complicated, we’re going to stick with the human lawyers. For now, anyway.
Tesla’s given away 12 actual Golden Tickets to their Gigafactory opening
We’re starting to suspect that Elon Musk is a book character rather than a normal human being. Tesla have given away twelve random invitations, which are actually called Golden Tickets, to twelve of those folks who pre-ordered a Tesla Model 3. The tickets (or Tickets) involve flights, transport and accommodation in Reno, Nevada, as well as a trip to the company’s Gigafactory opening on 29 July. We highly doubt that the dozen visitors will encounter anything quite as strange as the sights seen in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory but we’d like to think that there’s more to it than just a factory opening. If Elon Musk shows up in weird sunglasses, we’re hoping that someone takes photos.
Bioshock: The Collection leaks, is confirmed for PS4, Xbox One
To all the people who didn’t play Bioshock the first time around: All seventeen of you are about to get another chance. A Bioshock collection, comprising the three games in the series, leaked recently, just before publisher 2K Games confirmed that Bioshock 1, 2 and Infinite would be launching as a single disc for the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. The first two games will be getting a refurbish for the PC as well, where they’ll launch as standalones, but the trilogy is going to be reserved for the new consoles. Included with Bioshock: The Collection will be all of the single-player DLC created, as well as some new content including a concept art tour and new challenges for players to take on. Release date? 13 September, with the Collection being priced the same as a new game. Local pricing and launch windows haven’t been confirmed yet but expect it around the same time, with a rough R1,000 price tag.
