Cortana tips and tricks

[switch side method]

Apart from the obvious that we all know Cortana can do like impressions and singing, has anyone found out what else she can do that hasn't been mentioned in WPcentral?

 

[salmanahmad]

If you've pinned a website to your homepage, such as Pocketnow.com, you can simply tell Cortana "Open Pocketnow".

This is pretty awesome and should work for most websites that don't have an official app on Windows Phone yet. Go try it.

 

[switch side method]

Ahhh sweet. Thanks for that. Had no idea. This is the kind of tips I am after

 

[alllies]

I have pinned ProShot HDR mode then asked Cortana "Open ProShot in HDR mode"...tada! instant ProShot HDR. You can also do this with other modes.

 

[aikidaves]

If you speak certain search terms to Cortana, you get back search results headed with 'Here is what I found', and she reads the text description out loud.

I've been trying to figure out exactly what triggers this behavior, as it isn't consistent. I just searched for 'Boeing 747' twice - the first time it worked, the second time I just got a Bing search. I do know it has to be a spoken search string, not typed in.

 

[switch side method]

I haven't been that lucky for her to read out the text description at all. Not sure why

 

[aikidaves]

I haven't been that lucky for her to read out the text description at all. Not sure why

Conjecture: Maybe because they're still working on getting it right, it's not on all back-end servers yet? I get Bing searches far more often than I do this. It's kind of neat when it comes up, though.

 

[switch side method]

What did you type for her to read it out as I would love to try that

 

[aikidaves]

Didn't type, she'll only read if I speak the search term. The first time, I was reading a novel about the Vietnam War, and the Douglas Skyraider attack plane was mentioned in it. I was curious about the plane's specs, so I pulled out the phone and said 'Douglas Skyraider', since I was feeling a bit lazy and didn't want to type that out. I was expecting a Bing search to pop up, and was surprised when Cortana started talking. I've tried a number of different things like airplane model names, ships' names, car model names, and various other topics, but it's kind of random whether she comes back with the reading or just a Bing search. For some reason, she likes to talk about Russian MiG warplanes - all the major models, like MiG-17 in my example above, come up. Go figure.

 

[switch side method]

Awwww man... Yeah now you said that I have heard it before when I said Marilyn Manson. She pulled up he's details like age and such and read it out. Totally forgot about that. Thanks for the reminder

 

[switch side method]

I had to say "who is Marilyn Manson" and not just say he's name.

 

[aikidaves]

I had to say "who is Marilyn Manson" and not just say he's name.

Glad you got it to work! That's interesting, that sometimes it comes up from just the search term, and other times it needs 'question filler', so to speak. It's still a bit spotty as to who it will read about - I got readings for Lady Gaga, Dwight Eisenhower, and Hugh Hefner, but not for Marilyn Monroe. I guess it's still a good idea to rehearse before showing it off to Siri and Google Now users. <grin>

 

[switch side method]

Lol yeah I agree. Would be a tad embarassing