Voice assistants have been given a lot of importance by tech
giants like Apple and Google, lately. Now Microsoft wants to ensure that it
isn’t late for the party, and has given Cortana
a big push in Windows 10.
Microsoft’s Joe Belfiore showcased Cortana at the Windows 10 event. The biggest highlight
was Cortana will be coming to desktops as well. At the core, it is similar to
what we saw in Windows Phone, but now Cortana is more skilled at natural
language, handling your daily appointments and so on.
Where new features are
concerned, first and foremost Cortana has been improved to search documents and
can looked up specific Word files or Presentations. It also lets users search
for contextual information. For instance, you can look for “photos from
November.” It can also go beyond your computer and search for photos or docs
from Microsoft’s cloud service – OneDrive.
Needless to say, and
just like some other voice assistants, Cortana learns its users’
tastes and preferences. There’s a new feature called Notebook that keeps a tab
on all the saved information. It also keeps a track of the sports scores, travel,
weather and such similar information that you may be interested in.
It’s in the Notebook, that you can add other things that you expect Cortana to
keep a track.
As seen in some leaks earlier, Cortana is also coming
to the Spartan browser. After all, Cortana integrated in the web search bar
makes sense, given that Google has integrated voice-search in Chrome as well.
Cortana will bring predictive search into the browser.
“Rather than force you to search all the way for something,
Cortana can use its brain to predict what you’re going to want. Type “weather,”
and it shows you the weather. Type “Delta” and your flight information pops
right up,” points out Gizmodo.
In case you are on a
page of a hotel/restaurant, it instantly pops up the menu or Maps with
directions. In the search bar, it also helps with generating autocomplete.
Cortana also takes dictation. Yes, you can simply dictate an email, now. You
can also ask it to play music.
In fact during the
presentation, Microsoft’ Joe Belfiore showcased a lot of demos with Cortana,
and had a proper conversation with the search assistant, where he also
showcased Cortana’s ability to put search requests into context based on the
user. Cortana now supports 7 languages and can speak in impersonations as well.
Cortana in Windows 10
and desktop seems just the right move as Windows 10 is expected to bring a
seamless experience across all Microsoft devices. Given that voice-assistant
are being seen as the future of search, Microsoft’s move to bring Cortana to
desktops makes perfect sense.
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