Windows Phone 8.1 Introduces Intelligent Assistant Cortana

[JD88]

What a shock... Come into a thread on MS and JD88 is in it initiating snarky comments about MS and lauding how wonderful Google is... It's like bloody clockwork.

Jim, sometimes I wonder how much Microsoft pays you. What you just accused Google of doing is exactly what Microsoft has built its entire business around. Even if all Google had was its search engine, it would still be more than anything Microsoft has ever came up with on its own. Conveniently you have completely ignored the cloud computing revolution.

JD, you are the *last* person who should be accusing anyone of being a paid company man on this website. You and Jimmy are, ironically, practically inverses of each other, each one jumping headfirst into MS/Google threads to espouse the many virtues of the respective corporate giants and slagging into the others. The biggest difference is, I see Jimmy in Google threads *far* more rarely than I see you barging into MS threads. If you really want to rag on Jimmy for this, reading both of your posts, you should be aware that you seem every bit as "on message" as he does, being a consistent Google white knight. Heck, our first interaction was you criticizing the Surface line for things that you find *perfectly* acceptable in Chromebooks when they were even worse in the same area (app/program support), waving a double standard high for everyone to see, and I couldn't help but wonder "who's paying this guy?" If you really want to throw that stone as if it's bad to look like you're paid by a company you support, you should know, your single minded dogged determination to make sure everyone knows how bad MS is and how great Google is really paints you as the archetypal paid poster.

Someone has to be the voice of reason around here. Toms gives Microsoft coverage every time Ballmer uses the bathroom. The case in point is that new article about how Cortana is supposedly better than Siri and Google Now. Or, how about all the "XP is dying please buy Windows 8 ASAP" articles? Between that and the 25 "amen" posts on those stories by people like Jim, it's almost getting laughable.

It's not about Google. It's about the expansion of free and open source software. I'm just tired of people getting ripped off by companies using their market share monopolies to bully them into buying proprietary solutions while launching multi-million dollar ad campaigns against the free alternatives. Or, forming patent alliances to try to sue anyone who uses them in products.

I don't care who it is. Microsoft, Apple, Comcast, Verizon, or whomever is using their money or market power to abuse the consumer or the underdog competition, it's not right and I'll gladly promote the alternatives.

Ubuntu is about to launch 14.04, where's the coverage Toms? Where's the review? Google just added Google Now support to Chrome for the desktop. Where's Toms? The United Kingdom is switching their entire federal government over to open source office solutions, what about it Toms?

 

[jimmysmitty]

What a shock... Come into a thread on MS and JD88 is in it initiating snarky comments about MS and lauding how wonderful Google is... It's like bloody clockwork.

Jim, sometimes I wonder how much Microsoft pays you. What you just accused Google of doing is exactly what Microsoft has built its entire business around. Even if all Google had was its search engine, it would still be more than anything Microsoft has ever came up with on its own. Conveniently you have completely ignored the cloud computing revolution.

JD, you are the *last* person who should be accusing anyone of being a paid company man on this website. You and Jimmy are, ironically, practically inverses of each other, each one jumping headfirst into MS/Google threads to espouse the many virtues of the respective corporate giants and slagging into the others. The biggest difference is, I see Jimmy in Google threads *far* more rarely than I see you barging into MS threads. If you really want to rag on Jimmy for this, reading both of your posts, you should be aware that you seem every bit as "on message" as he does, being a consistent Google white knight. Heck, our first interaction was you criticizing the Surface line for things that you find *perfectly* acceptable in Chromebooks when they were even worse in the same area (app/program support), waving a double standard high for everyone to see, and I couldn't help but wonder "who's paying this guy?" If you really want to throw that stone as if it's bad to look like you're paid by a company you support, you should know, your single minded dogged determination to make sure everyone knows how bad MS is and how great Google is really paints you as the archetypal paid poster.

Someone has to be the voice of reason around here. Toms gives Microsoft coverage every time Ballmer uses the bathroom. The case in point is that new article about how Cortana is supposedly better than Siri and Google Now. Or, how about all the "XP is dying please buy Windows 8 ASAP" articles? Between that and the 25 "amen" posts on those stories by people like Jim, it's almost getting laughable.

It's not about Google. It's about the expansion of free and open source software. I'm just tired of people getting ripped off by companies using their market share monopolies to bully them into buying proprietary solutions while launching multi-million dollar ad campaigns against the free alternatives. Or, forming patent alliances to try to sue anyone who uses them in products.

I don't care who it is. Microsoft, Apple, Comcast, Verizon, or whomever is using their money or market power to abuse the consumer or the underdog competition, it's not right and I'll gladly promote the alternatives.

Ubuntu is about to launch 14.04, where's the coverage Toms? Where's the review? Google just added Google Now support to Chrome for the desktop. Where's Toms? The United Kingdom is switching their entire federal government over to open source office solutions, what about it Toms?

All I said was two thing: One that Google is no better than Microsoft, nor is Apple, as both take ideas they never innovated and two that WP 8 gives a similar experience as the XB1, Windows tablets and laptops/desktops do which is a move no other company is doing yet. iOS and Android are both more like Fisher Price simplified OSes. OSX is nothing like iOS and while that is fine I think Microsoft is going the one route the others are not yet that they eventually will.

I don't defend any company, I will admit when a company makes a mistake or does something stupid (i.e. Windows ME or the fact that 8.1 is better than 8 was in many ways like the start button) but I wont just jump on the bash MS wagon like a lot of people do.

Linux has its place but honestly it has very little market share in the enthusiasts market. Steam Hardware survey shows about 1.2% use Linux that allow their hardware to be scanned. Compare that to 95% Windows, even Windows 8 (8 and 8/1 combined) have over 20%. Windows is where most enthusiasts live.

Ubuntu is also considered the red headed step child of Linux from what I have seen and their GUI is meh unless you spend a ton of time customizing it.

And while I am not against open source software, I am not for it in a environment that needs security and control. Mainly because it doesn't allow for the same amount of control that Windows does nor the support. Once Ubuntu can offer the support Microsoft or Apple does for their OS it will be fine but until then Linux will remain a more specialized OS.

Either way, thinking I get paid by MS just because I point out Google is no better is pretty short sighted.

 

[JD88]

What a shock... Come into a thread on MS and JD88 is in it initiating snarky comments about MS and lauding how wonderful Google is... It's like bloody clockwork.

Jim, sometimes I wonder how much Microsoft pays you. What you just accused Google of doing is exactly what Microsoft has built its entire business around. Even if all Google had was its search engine, it would still be more than anything Microsoft has ever came up with on its own. Conveniently you have completely ignored the cloud computing revolution.

JD, you are the *last* person who should be accusing anyone of being a paid company man on this website. You and Jimmy are, ironically, practically inverses of each other, each one jumping headfirst into MS/Google threads to espouse the many virtues of the respective corporate giants and slagging into the others. The biggest difference is, I see Jimmy in Google threads *far* more rarely than I see you barging into MS threads. If you really want to rag on Jimmy for this, reading both of your posts, you should be aware that you seem every bit as "on message" as he does, being a consistent Google white knight. Heck, our first interaction was you criticizing the Surface line for things that you find *perfectly* acceptable in Chromebooks when they were even worse in the same area (app/program support), waving a double standard high for everyone to see, and I couldn't help but wonder "who's paying this guy?" If you really want to throw that stone as if it's bad to look like you're paid by a company you support, you should know, your single minded dogged determination to make sure everyone knows how bad MS is and how great Google is really paints you as the archetypal paid poster.

Someone has to be the voice of reason around here. Toms gives Microsoft coverage every time Ballmer uses the bathroom. The case in point is that new article about how Cortana is supposedly better than Siri and Google Now. Or, how about all the "XP is dying please buy Windows 8 ASAP" articles? Between that and the 25 "amen" posts on those stories by people like Jim, it's almost getting laughable.

It's not about Google. It's about the expansion of free and open source software. I'm just tired of people getting ripped off by companies using their market share monopolies to bully them into buying proprietary solutions while launching multi-million dollar ad campaigns against the free alternatives. Or, forming patent alliances to try to sue anyone who uses them in products.

I don't care who it is. Microsoft, Apple, Comcast, Verizon, or whomever is using their money or market power to abuse the consumer or the underdog competition, it's not right and I'll gladly promote the alternatives.

Ubuntu is about to launch 14.04, where's the coverage Toms? Where's the review? Google just added Google Now support to Chrome for the desktop. Where's Toms? The United Kingdom is switching their entire federal government over to open source office solutions, what about it Toms?

All I said was two thing: One that Google is no better than Microsoft, nor is Apple, as both take ideas they never innovated and two that WP 8 gives a similar experience as the XB1, Windows tablets and laptops/desktops do which is a move no other company is doing yet. iOS and Android are both more like Fisher Price simplified OSes. OSX is nothing like iOS and while that is fine I think Microsoft is going the one route the others are not yet that they eventually will.

I don't defend any company, I will admit when a company makes a mistake or does something stupid (i.e. Windows ME or the fact that 8.1 is better than 8 was in many ways like the start button) but I wont just jump on the bash MS wagon like a lot of people do.

Linux has its place but honestly it has very little market share in the enthusiasts market. Steam Hardware survey shows about 1.2% use Linux that allow their hardware to be scanned. Compare that to 95% Windows, even Windows 8 (8 and 8/1 combined) have over 20%. Windows is where most enthusiasts live.

Ubuntu is also considered the red headed step child of Linux from what I have seen and their GUI is meh unless you spend a ton of time customizing it.

And while I am not against open source software, I am not for it in a environment that needs security and control. Mainly because it doesn't allow for the same amount of control that Windows does nor the support. Once Ubuntu can offer the support Microsoft or Apple does for their OS it will be fine but until then Linux will remain a more specialized OS.

Either way, thinking I get paid by MS just because I point out Google is no better is pretty short sighted.

I think you're being unfairly singled out, Jim. It's not an attack on you personally. My point is that there needs to be a little variety in the discussion here. Of course Linux has a small market share, and no it's not a viable alternative in a lot of cases. In some cases it is. However, if we never talk about those cases it never will be. Windows Phone has practically no market share yet it gets plenty of coverage.

The facts are that a giant leap in consumer technology has been made over the past 5-6 years and it has largely been a result of the marginalization of Microsoft and its one time monopoly on that market. A big part of that was due to mistakes made by its executive team. The fact that we are even having this discussion is proof of that.

Those facts combined with the disgusting way Microsoft has gone about trying to cling to it's empire through negative advertising and litigation is enough to drive me to removing it from my life and suggesting others do the same. Same for Apple, same for Verizon, same for Comcast.

In this thread specifically I called out Microsoft for what is blatant copying of rivals with no innovation. If anyone else did that, they would fail, but Microsoft has the money and power to force itself back into the market. I'm all for competition, but let it at least lead to innovation. Let Microsoft regain its market share by coming up with some killer feature that no one else has, not by adding features that already exist and stonewalling OEMs into making products that use them under threat of lawsuit.

 

[marcski07]

"The most significant part of this new version is Cortana, a personal assistant feature built to rival Apple's Siri and Google Now, and powered by Microsoft's search engine, Bing."

the last word destroyed my interest of cortana. Bing for me has a bad reputation. XD