Microsoft Working On Apple Siri Competitor Codenamed ‘Cortana’

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brotkasten said:
Live tiles are only as good as the developers who code the application. The best you usually get out of live tiles are shortcuts to app functions, but those are rarely live.
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Yes, that's definitely true.

There's some excellent examples for well designed live-tiles, and then there's some very lazy ones that don't add anything.

There's very good live tiles for stuff like weather, calendars, share-tickers, news-readers, traffic and so on, which is all stuff you'd like to see in a personal assistant, but having them all together in one and adding stuff like notifications etc. would be extremely useful for me, even though I already get all the information I need in the live-tiles anyway.

Again, it all depends on how well it is being implemented and integrated. Just another app with a tile wouldn't do anything for me.
 
TellMe should already be better than Siri because app developers can actually integrate into it, and not just with functionality it understands, because WP has deep linking you can say something and have it trigger any app on your phone to do anything that app can do.


Unfortunately.......app support.
 
samn said:
Google Now in the UK just isn't very good right now. I tried a bunch of commands that I saw in a YouTube video and most of them don't work at all.
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Nevasleep said:
Are we going to take bets on how many countries it will(won't) support?
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US will have the biggest functionality at launch, EFIGS will follow and catch up later. Then it will slowly tickle down to other countries, year over year. Pretty much like Bing on the web or Windows Phone.

The only positive thing is that Microsoft can do all the updating on the backend, without having to update the OS.
 
Can't complain too much about Microsoft's support in the UK, whether it's Xbox or Windows Phone.

It's your own fault for living in countries that speak foreign.
 
Some more info and screenshots of the settings on the Verge:

Microsoft's 'Cortana' is like Siri for Windows Phone
By Tom Warren on September 12, 2013 08:23 am Email @tomwarren 0Comments


Microsoft is currently testing and readying its Windows Phone 8.1 update that is believed to include a new personal assistant. ZDNet's Mary Jo Foley reports that the Siri-like feature, codenamed Cortana after the Halo character, will let Windows Phone users interact with a handset through voice commands. Windows Phone already includes basic voice commands, but Cortana looks to be a step further with a system that will learn and adapt.

Steve Ballmer has promised a "service-enabled shell" for Microsoft's devices, and Foley claims Cortana is central to this new shell for Windows Phone, Windows, and Xbox One. It's not clear exactly how Cortana will work on Windows Phone, but screenshots of Windows Phone 8.1 earlier this year revealed that Microsoft is already testing the technology. The Verge has obtained additional screenshots of Cortana in action. It looks like Microsoft is testing the ability to pull in weather information, notifications, and calendar events into a single central interface. The interface also includes location information, and access to Bluetooth controls. Microsoft has previously shown concepts of a voice activated personal assistant for Windows Phone, and it could be ready to now make it a reality.

http://www.theverge.com/2013/9/12/4722484/windows-phone-8-1-cortana-personal-assistant-screenshots
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the better twin said:
TBH Microsoft do have a long history of voice recognition software and a lot of the stuff they are doing in the field is very impressive. I find it funny that people mock them over this of all things.

Perhaps they are hoping to include real time language translation: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nu-nlQqFCKg

Tell me is already pretty good/accurate at the moment too.
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You aren't kidding. Their enterprise stuff for voice recognition is superb. Their desktop uses a derivative of this but the natural language processor and dialect/inflection recognition processor has to run on some powerful hardware. If they do split recognition (some local, some remote) this could be very good.
 
if you have to say 'cortana... ' to activate it it will be really weird and hilarious. like everyone is LARPing Halo.
 
I had a Windows Phone, then an iPhone and I currently have a Nexus 4. TellMe on the Windows Phone remains the most accurate voice recognition I've used, and it was more functional than both iPhone and Android prior to their introduction of Siri and Google Now. I've been waiting for them to introduce a natural evolution (as they hinted at years ago in this pretty terrible video) so hopefully it's as good as it should be. With Kinect they have more than phones that would benefit.
 
samn said:
Google Now in the UK just isn't very good right now. I tried a bunch of commands that I saw in a YouTube video and most of them don't work at all.
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Set your device into US English, then set the clock/keyboard/date back to UK format. Problem solved. Google voice search (not Now, that's the cards stuff) is awesome in US English. It even understands my daft accent.
 
I'm surpised by the siri hate. I use it all the time, and it works great.

Mostly for small things like setting reminders, asking for conversions or info, and for dictating texts instead of typing (not sure if that is considered 'siri', as well, but whatever).
 
AlteredBeast said:
Google Now is wasted potential. I would prefer just to have the old Google search stuff back on my phone instead of Google Now.

It is 2pm on a Sunday, I don't need to know a badly estimated projection of my time to work...
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Yeah, that's one of the weird things about Google Now. It never got the time right for me, when it came to displaying the public transit departure and travel time. It kinda knew when I'd usually leave the house or when I'd arrive, it would even display the right train I'd have to take, but it never got the departure and travel time correct. Very annoying and I'm glad I never relied on it.
 
I really hope the final product IS called Cortana, and has Cortana's (Jen Taylor's) voice. I'd love to see to my phone "Cortana! Research Periodic Table of Elements!"

but don't Windows Phone already have voice navigation software like Siri? My 1020 does when I hold the Windows Button.
 
AlteredBeast said:
Google Now is wasted potential. I would prefer just to have the old Google search stuff back on my phone instead of Google Now.

It is 2pm on a Sunday, I don't need to know a badly estimated projection of my time to work...
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I kinda agree. Maybe I'm just not a very busy person, but I don't often find it to be that helpful.

I do use it to set alarms and what not, but I don't think that's really even Google Now.
 
Bill Gates was a big fan of voice control and tablets wasn't he? Would be interesting to see what would have happened if he stayed on with MS.
 
I keep seeing this thread title, and I couldn't pin point why it looked funny.

It's because the name reminds me of costanza.
 
cartoon_soldier said:
They really need to embrace the other mobile platforms and build their software for them too.
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But that's exactly what they're doing. Xbox Music is on iOS, Android and Windows Phone, so is Office (even though you need a subscription to use it on iOS or Android). OneNote is available as well, just like Xbox SmartGlass, SkyDrive and some of their mobile games (even with Xbox Live achievements!). Heck, the Bing app for iOS and Android was better than the Bing integration in Windows Phone 7 for a long time.

Microsoft is not in the position anymore to keep their services exclusive to their platform and they know that. Meanwhile Google completely ignores Microsoft's platforms, almost to the point where it seems like they're trying to sabotage it.
 
Haha... I don't have a Windows phone and can't picture myself switching to one, but that IS pretty damn clever. :)

On a side note, I have actually been using Siri a little more lately.
 
sky said:
I'm surpised by the siri hate. I use it all the time, and it works great.

Mostly for small things like setting reminders, asking for conversions or info, and for dictating texts instead of typing (not sure if that is considered 'siri', as well, but whatever).
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Same here. Siri is a whole lot quicker than poking at the screen for simple tasks.

I love the natural language recognition. One time I just said "Show me how to get home", and it opened up a map and started giving me directions.
 
Google voice dictation is not as good as I thought it would be.

Everyone praises its calculator ability, but every time I say 'point' like 9.8 it says '9 points 8' sometimes and then doesn't do the calculation.

Also when I ask it to do decimal places for both numbers, Google thinks there is a pause in between and then doesn't calculate.
 
Microsoft still thinks "just add Halo" will make any product successful?

They don't seem to understand consumers at all nowadays.
 
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