How Microsoft's other machine learning tricks could make its bots even smarter

As someone on Twitter said, if "bots" was on your Build 2016 drinking game card, you'd be long dead. But while Microsoft is all about getting developers to create intelligent app companions to make our lives easier, is there any impressive machine learning the Redmond firm is ready to show off right now? The answer, surprise, is yes. Besides ordering Domino's pizzas, Microsoft has been tinkering with its Azure-based tools to recognize age, gender, emotion and individuals by name. Remember the great/awful How Old Do I Look? website introduced at last year's Build? The Windows 10 maker has been building off this ego-buster since, and what it's cooked up is far more intelligent – and more flattering – than its earlier iteration.