Microsoft has rolled out its own news-finding bot called ‘Rowe’. This bot is packed inside the updated version of Microsoft’s personalized news-reading app, News Pro. This bot has being designed to help you keep up with the news that matches your interests. Rowe goes to work gathering those articles that you’ll want to read when you ask it to make a recommendation and it lets you search for news by typing in a topic.
You may think Rowe is an extraordinary thing but I don’t think it is. Although Microsoft is saying Rowe is a bot, it is actually much more like an assistive search engine and it is not even so good in its ability to return articles on a given subject.
Another thing about Rowe is that it wants to see your selfies. A user can send a selfie and have Rowe tell you which person in the news you look like, and then give headlines about that person back to you. Really weird! Why would I want to know headlines about someone in the news who looks like me? like, do I care?
While the News Pro doesn’t do a great job at personalization yet, it does offer a customized experience by connecting to your Facebook and LinkedIn in order to better understand your interests.
What do you do think about Rowe?