You probably only use three apps on your smartphone—and one of them is likely a messaging app. By some estimates, messengers are even more popular than social media. And now, Facebook is giving you even more reasons to send text messages. Today at its annual developer conference, Facebook announced its adding chatbots—short for chat robots—to its Messenger app. The new bots are essentially software, with varying degrees of complexity, that are capable of simulating human conversation. The bots could book a hotel, order a meal, find a restaurant, hail a cab, and do much more through text chatting. Advertisement Facebook hopes the bots will fundamentally change the way you use your smartphone. Instead of opening up several different standalone apps for one small command, you’ll be able run those operations all through Facebook Messenger. Imagine booking a flight by simply texting an airline (some are already preparing for that future) or finding the right … [Read more...] about Facebook Wants to Make the Smartphone Smart Again