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Universal notifications

Have I posted this before? Or has someone else? Or did I imagine everything?
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This service presumably runs as a standalone online app.

How it works: it has a semantic programming language that is easy enough for imbecils to use.

The user writes a condition thing and then the app sends a message when the conditions are met. To avoid advertisements, false positives, and general overload like what you get on social media, the system is priced per notification actually sent, to encourage people to write very specific conditions.

e.g. "IF" the price of gold is less than £3.77 per ounce AND my bank balance is over £3,622.07 THEN text me with the message "Tell uncle oswald to water the geraniums"

or e.g. IF there is a new UK government minister for strategic planning THEN post a twit to my twatter account saying "I love beans"

These are not very good examples but never mind.

pocmloc, Apr 19 2020

Google Alerts https://www.google.co.uk/alerts
Baked and WKTE. [8th of 7, Apr 19 2020]

[link]






       // imbecils //   

       Sp. "imbeciles", Pr. "pocmloc"   

       Don't bother editing it; we have archived the entire posting, as usual. Your imbecilic error may as well remain on public display forever.   

       As to the idea, Google used to support something very like this- Google Alerts ?
8th of 7, Apr 19 2020
  

       Requires strong AI
Voice, Apr 19 2020
  

       //Requires strong AI// I disagree; it can be set up to work within the limits of currently available AI.   

       At a simple level, it could just harvest triggers from limited sources, e.g. the Met Office % chance of rain, or social media feeds, or keywords appearing in BBC News headlines. In many ways it is a similar process to the auto-generated saved-search matching algorithms on many e-commerce sites.   

       "Dear pocmloc, this week *three* items matching your search query *electric AND lobster NOT secondhand* have been posted on the GribbleEmporium.co.uk online store. Click here to place your order"   

       All my idea does is harvest from public external feeds not just the in-house databases.
pocmloc, Apr 19 2020
  

       We think this <link> may be what you're describing, and // it can be set up to work within the limits of currently available AI.//   

       Whether it can be set up to work within the limits* of currently available NI** is, however, doubtful.   

       *particularly yours.   

       **Natural Intelligence.
8th of 7, Apr 19 2020
  

       Google Alerts seems only to send notification of Google results matching search queries. I.e. it is an in-house notifications service like what I described in the idea. It doesn't allow for specific querying of publicly available data feeds (e.g. met office temperature)   

       So, interesting, vaguely relevant, but not what this idea is specifting
pocmloc, Apr 19 2020
  

       What you describe could be done with a simple script, e.g., wolframscript + crontab.
Mindey, Apr 19 2020
  

       We were just about to suggest running a bit of shell script using cron ...   

       Bah. We'd have gotten away with it too, if it wasn't for you pesky kids ...
8th of 7, Apr 19 2020
  

       Requires. strong. AI.   

       Whether or not the questions are posed in stilted English the integration of all the world's data isn't as simple as a Google search. Not yet anyway. I can't Google my bank balance or my phone number. And while an app with the functionality to perform that integration is possible, the idea envisions not that but the arbitrary infinite number of such queries a user may make.   

       The idea is for a program that can integrate essentially every data stream otherwise available to the user and answer arbitrary questions. out of those data streams. Price of gold? trivial. Whether there's a new UK government minister for strategic planning? Very difficult. Whether there is a new X for arbitrary definitions of X? Impossible without strong AI.   

       That said a secretarial service with humans in the loop would be able to do it for a price per query.
Voice, Apr 20 2020
  
      
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