A New Version Of Cortana Rolls Out To Windows Insiders

[kcarbotte]

Microsoft announced that Windows Insiders are getting a new version of Cortana today. Microsoft’s personal assistant includes new features for calendar management and intelligent automatic reminders.

A New Version Of Cortana Rolls Out To Windows Insiders : Read more

 

[Guest]

Is anyone even using Cortana? Microsoft needs to quite with useless features.

 

[adgjlsfhk]

I'm still waiting anxiously for a much needed feature: an off button

 

[captaincharisma]

so i guess this means fast ring insiders will get another a 3rd build update in the span of 2 weeks

 

[kawininjazx]

I don't find the regular search or cortana to be of any use.

 

[pelegbn]

Any new languages support in this version?

 

[derekullo]

Now with new and improved world dominating dll's.

 

[Max_x2]

I'm still waiting anxiously for a much needed feature: an off button

And I'm still waiting for people to use google more efficiently and know what they're talking about instead of whining for no reason, but I guess that will never really happen.

 

[Quixit]

I'm not sure why most people would even want these features, almost everyone has either an Android phone or a iPhone to be their personal organizer already. We don't need our PCs doing the same things as well.

 

[firefoxx04]

Cortana was somewhat useful when I tried it out. I really need a personnel assistant to open ANY application I ask it to. If I say, open Steam.. she needs to know what that is, not do a bing search for me.

I was at a client location today installing a printer driver. She uses Windows 10 and it was running great. Thought about going back to it until I remembered all the BS I had to deal with. SMB performance was junk, Default PDF player junk. Call home functions sending data non stop. No thanks.

 

[alextheblue]

I'm not sure why most people would even want these features, almost everyone has either an Android phone or a iPhone to be their personal organizer already. We don't need our PCs doing the same things as well.

Windows 10 runs on things other than a conventional giant tower PC. Like tablets and hybrid devices. Would it make sense if Apple only had Siri on iPhone but not iPad? Why NOT have it available on all Win10 devices? You can set stuff up with Cortana to remind you of something while you're doing something on your Win10 device, and have it go with you on your smartphone - Cortana is multiplatform.

I'm still waiting anxiously for a much needed feature: an off button

You can already disable it.

 

[holyneo]

If only Hillary had this for her emails.

 

[back_by_demand]

Is anyone even using Cortana? Microsoft needs to quite with useless features.

Errr, quite a lot of people use it, it's invaluable on phones and is probably one of the most useful features overall.
Back under your bridge, troll.

 

[ldogg1981]

There may be an option to turn off Cortana, but the process will continue to run in the background even when turned off. And since Cortana is always listening I would assume that it is listening when it is running in the background even when turned off. While there is an option to turn off Cortana, is it ever really off?

 

[Quixit]

I'm not sure why most people would even want these features, almost everyone has either an Android phone or a iPhone to be their personal organizer already. We don't need our PCs doing the same things as well.

Windows 10 runs on things other than a conventional giant tower PC. Like tablets and hybrid devices. Would it make sense if Apple only had Siri on iPhone but not iPad? Why NOT have it available on all Win10 devices? You can set stuff up with Cortana to remind you of something while you're doing something on your Win10 device, and have it go with you on your smartphone - Cortana is multiplatform.

I'm still waiting anxiously for a much needed feature: an off button

You can already disable it.

Most of those things run Windows 10 Mobile, which despite the advertising is significantly different from Windows 10.

 

[alextheblue]

Most of those things run Windows 10 Mobile, which despite the advertising is significantly different from Windows 10.

This is completely untrue. Windows 10 mobile isn't even officially out, and I've only ever seen it on phones. Most if not all Windows 10 tablets and hybrids are equipped with x86 processors and run FULL Windows 10. It has a twin UI so I can almost sort of understand why you'd be fooled. You can switch between the touch friendly full-screen UI and traditional desktop at will. You can even have them switch automatically (optional, can be disabled) when you dock/change configuration/etc.

 

[Quixit]

Most of those things run Windows 10 Mobile, which despite the advertising is significantly different from Windows 10.

This is completely untrue. Windows 10 mobile isn't even officially out, and I've only ever seen it on phones. Most if not all Windows 10 tablets and hybrids are equipped with x86 processors and run FULL Windows 10. It has a twin UI so I can almost sort of understand why you'd be fooled. You can switch between the touch friendly full-screen UI and traditional desktop at will. You can even have them switch automatically (optional, can be disabled) when you dock/change configuration/etc.

You're being intentionally dense, my original post was about phones. We were always talking about phones. Most people don't carry a 8+ inch tablet or hybrid around with them 100% of the time so I can't see how those factor into my point at all. My point was that this feature is only useful to people who don't have Android phones or iPhones.

 

[alextheblue]

You're being intentionally dense, my original post was about phones. We were always talking about phones. Most people don't carry a 8+ inch tablet or hybrid around with them 100% of the time so I can't see how those factor into my point at all. My point was that this feature is only useful to people who don't have Android phones or iPhones.

When someone questions why would we want Cortana on our PCs, PCs are now involved in the conversation, and not only phones. I pointed out the fact that Windows 10 (and thus Cortana) is available on not only conventional PCs, but modern tablets and hybrids, small and large. In particular the smaller tablets are media consumption devices similar to iPads. You said in reply that most of those devices are running Win10 Mobile. That's not true.

Back to why Cortana is good on the PC: Why not? It's moderately handy. If you're oldschool you can turn it off. I forgot to mention I like being able to highlight a name in Edge and right click and hit "ask Cortana". It's handy. Anyway, people use Siri on iPads even though they have iPhones. Cortana is available on Android and iOS as well, but that doesn't make it useless on x86 devices. You could be watching full-screen Netflix on your Win10 device and you can have set an alarm or other reminder real quick so you don't lose track of time and forget to do something.

Having a digital assistant is expected of modern devices. Lacking one would be stranger than the other way around.

 

[DrakeFS]

Didn't Microsoft learn anything from Google? Wasn't there a huge brouhaha when it was found the google was reading all your emails to index them for searching? So now MS is going to do the same thing with Cortana... Good idea.

 

[alextheblue]

Didn't Microsoft learn anything from Google? Wasn't there a huge brouhaha when it was found the google was reading all your emails to index them for searching? So now MS is going to do the same thing with Cortana... Good idea.

Yes, sort of. Keep in mind that Google wasn't just indexing for search. ALL emails are searchable by YOU as long as you have access to your email server. You can search through ISP-stored email via a third-party email client using POP3, for example. No, this was Google combing your emails to mine data. Including, but not limited to, mining for advertisement purposes. As in, hey, here's an email where he talks about buying a new car. Boom lots of targeted ads about buying new cars headed to a banner ad near you, just as an obvious example of one thing they did with your data.

Plus, you can turn off Cortana. You couldn't do too much about Google searching your emails at the time they got caught with their hand in the cookie jar. They may have added more control later, I don't know - I don't use MS or Google email and I didn't follow up on the story. But at least initially you weren't given a choice.