Cortana News (Coming from the inside) (OP being updated)

[Talderon]

I plan to update this post with news and information from the inside (Microsoft) that I am allowed to share that is not really being publicized.

[NOTE]05/14/2014

Build 8.10.12382 has just been released to the Developer Preview audience!!!!

No feature releases but contains bug fixes, performance enhancements as well as work on the Battery Life issues.

I am waiting confirmation, but the Device Hangs on Wi-Fi should be fixed as well.[/NOTE]

[NOTE]Please note the following:

The team is currently working on a GDR1 update for Cortana and may have some updates for WP8.1 core as well. There is currently no timeline as to when the update will roll out, but the suggestion is As Soon As Possible.[/NOTE]

[NOTE]Cortana Chit-Chat

There was an issue with Chit-Chat a few days ago, the issue on our end has been resolved, so please report any new Chit-Chat issues.[/NOTE]

[INFO]04/17/2014

Cortana's "Getting to know you" reset.

This is a known issue and is being worked on. The ability to either manually kick off the questions or have it set to detect if you have not answered them and kicked them off will be implemented in a near future update.[/INFO]

[INFO]04/19/2014

Cortana's ability to turn on Wi-Fi at nearby places is being looked into and tested. There is hope that a fix will be rolled out soon.

Cortana not saying your name: Right now, this is by design while we work on some back-end stuff to get this working reliably.

Right now, the location based reminder system is best used with locations in your "Places" tab in Cortana's Notebook. Right now, generalized locations like "any supermarket" is more miss than hit, but that is being worked on. GeoFencing is still a WIP, but being worked on daily with regular updates on the back end.[/INFO]

[INFO]04/24/2014

The Cortana Flight Parsing from Email issues are being looked at aggressively. Hopefully updates will be rolling out to fix some of these issues.

Date Picker is also near for manual entry of flight tracking[/INFO]

[INFO]04/25/2014

Shipment/package tracking info currently in internal beta. Release will be announced once we have satisfactory testing completed.

Sports Tracking - This feature works for the most part, but there are other leagues that people want to track that may not be considered "Main Stream". E-Sports is getting a lot of attention (LoL, DoTA, StarCraft 2 and the like) as well as smaller sports franchises (like High School sports, WNBA and several others). I really have no firm information, but I thought the sports fans out there might like to know they are getting some love from Cortana as well.

Some major work is going on for To-Do lists. More details will come as they are obtained.[/INFO]

[INFO]04/28/2014

For the initial release of Cortana's GeoFencing feature, they didn't want to go with Radius, however, not much choice because of how much work was in the other option (I will explain). The radius is approx. 200 - 500 feet depending on the type of location (Home and Work should be a bit tighter than other places).

This is NOT going to remain!!

They are going to use a combination of Distance and Polygonal special awareness. This means that we will determine the size and shape of a location (not just where the pin is for the address but the shape of the building(s) related to that address) so that on large areas (College, Mall etc.) you can approach it from any direction and once you get within a distance of a "Border", you will get reminded.

Kinda general, but that is all I have at this time as work is underway. No ETA's but people are working on it exclusively.

Thanks! [/INFO]

[INFO]04/30/2014

*For those of you that keep getting the ‘I am sorry I didn’t get that’, the issue is being worked on and should be fixed soon.

*Phone shuts down orderly but randomly and often

For our internal team members, the fix for this has been a lose SIM card. Shut the phone down, remove SIM card and clean the contacts and blow out the slot to make sure there is no debris in there and put it back together.

This has been noticed most predominantly on HTC 8x and Lumia 920.

*We have discovered the issue where when playing music with plugged in head phone and the music is stopped with a "Stop the Music" type application, you may not be able to change the volume. Suggestion is to STOP using these types of apps until they have been updated for WP8.1 or just stop using them all together.

*5 day weather comes back with 1 day only

This is not a wide spread impact, however, some people, when asking for the weather for the next 5 days/week may only get one day result. There is a planned fix for May to resolve this issue.[/INFO]

[INFO]Sports Cards

Ok, those little sections of info you see in Cortana are called cards. There is a LOT LOT LOT of work going in getting the major leagues in there so we can start working on minor/local leagues. eSports are in there too. Things will go live as the weeks go on without a ton of fanfare until we get all the kinks worked out.

Flight Tracking

A lot of work is going on here and for those and get flight info, things should be looking better, but we're still doing weekly releases to keep things moving forward.

Traffic Info

This should have already gotten better. Improvements are still coming and quickly.

Natural Voice

We are working with Jen to get a LOT more chit-chat things, so keep trying new and old questions to see if you can spot the updates. Cortana's voice will start feeling even more natural over time. A lot of work is going on to refine Cortana's speech.

Card Divider

I can't remember if this has shipped yet, but there should or will be a horizontal like appearing to separate the cards for easier viewing. I have had it for several weeks now and find it nice to have.

Cortana on Xbox One and Windows 8 PC's

Yes, it's coming, no, no ETA but I have been testing it on XB1 and it's very neat, especially when playing a Halo game. [/INFO]

On a side note that is TOTALLY NOT RELATED to this. If anyone wants to join in on the fun of helping me name my new kitten, please look here.

http://forums.windowscentral.com/off-topic-lounge/285718-anyone-want-help-me-name-my-new-kitten.html

Thanks all!

 

[Talderon]

[WARN]Please do not ask me about dates on when a region or language will be released. I am not allowed to state any dates and will not respond to PM's requesting this information. It's not worth my job/career to answer these questions in public or private.

Thanks for your understanding!![/WARN]

 

[Talderon]

[NOTE]04/25/2014

Xbox Music app has been updated to specifically fix the Cortana Playlist Issue![/NOTE]

 

[Talderon]

[INFO]For the record, Cortana WILL BE coming to other platforms, for ALL PC's and Tablets, you will need to be on Windows 8.1 or higher (PC versions and RT) as well as Xbox One.[/INFO]

 

[rockstarzzz]

How about - ability to address you with the name she asks at the start of the setup? I've never heard her say my name.

 

[Talderon]

How about - ability to address you with the name she asks at the start of the setup? I've never heard her say my name.

I have been asking about this and the latest information I have is in the OP.
(ok, I added this info to the OP earlier this morning. )

 

[DavidinCT]

Chit-chat problem here. Had this issue from first installing 8.1 on my Nokia ICON. If I say "tell me a joke" (as shown in the preview), She (it) will return "Cant find a number for <facebook contact>" and crash right to the desktop (just exits right back to the tile page like it crashed). The contact that is being referred to is a facebook contact only, I do not have this person in my primary contacts on the phone.

 

[anseld1986]

How do Cortana updates work? It sounds like you can make a lot of changes by working on the back-end - if you need to make changes (or add features) to the actual Cortana code on the phone, can you push the update via the store like a standalone app, or can it only be done with an OS update?

 

[TruPlaya187]

Great thread!

 

[AR2186]

Does Cortana do shipping updates? Mine seem to work fine in Outlook.com, but no such luck with Cortana

 

[Guytronic]

Will Cortana be integrated with Here drive or Microsoft maps?

I was thinking Cortana could be the more intelligent turn by turn voice.
Be kind of neat if she could voice when to start based on traffic and planned route.

 

[Talderon]

Chit-chat problem here. Had this issue from first installing 8.1 on my Nokia ICON. If I say "tell me a joke" (as shown in the preview), She (it) will return "Cant find a number for <facebook contact>" and crash right to the desktop (just exits right back to the tile page like it crashed). The contact that is being referred to is a facebook contact only, I do not have this person in my primary contacts on the phone.

I am working on an app that will allow the capturing of logs and other data. These issues are REALLY hard for us as we have a full line of devices we test with (multiple carriers as well) and without more information, it's hard to get to the root of. I'll update the OP when I have something.

How do Cortana updates work? It sounds like you can make a lot of changes by working on the back-end - if you need to make changes (or add features) to the actual Cortana code on the phone, can you push the update via the store like a standalone app, or can it only be done with an OS update?

\

Even though you cannot search for Cortana in the market place, she is still an app on the device (with just a bit deeper integration in the OS than any other app). We're still working on how updates will roll out. It will either be app updates or through GDR updates (which will be coming more frequently).

Does Cortana do shipping updates? Mine seem to work fine in Outlook.com, but no such luck with Cortana

This is on the drawing board, but you have to remember that with the Cortana API, Dev's can do MANY of the Cortana features people are wanting. No roadmap placement on this feature yet.

Will Cortana be integrated with Here drive or Microsoft maps?

I was thinking Cortana could be the more intelligent turn by turn voice.
Be kind of neat if she could voice when to start based on traffic and planned route.

Here Drive is NOT a Microsoft application. It is a Nokia app and even through we are taking over phone/devices from Nokia, the Here apps are not coming with it. As for the built in maps, there is a lot of integrations there already, but there will be a lot more in the future (they will come in the form of Map app update, Cortana back end and maybe even an app update to Cortana).

 

[EchoOne30]

Excellent thread, many thanks OP.

Commenting to keep it in my "participated" list.

/nice to see the "Cortana not saying your name" addressed!

 

[DavidinCT]

If you need someone to do beta testing, hit me up, I did a bunch of beta test for MS in the past(bug bash winner a few times), Would love a chance to make WP better...

 

[Talderon]

Thanks all!! I'll keep things flowing, just remember we don't have info every day, but I promise to keep up with it and post as I am able!

 

[ajayden]

Good thread. Thanks for it. Looking forward for all the useful updates.

 

[abhishake620]

well cant wifi be automatically turned off if not connected and not in a favourite place as consider the following scenario.......you goto a friends place every morning pick him up and head to office...if suppose his place is set as favourite wifi gets turned on and then when you leave his place and move to office and then come back home in the evening the wifi will be on so unwanted battery drain ...could you suggest to turn and switch off wifi using location as it would be more sensible that way than this ......... this is more or less like in 8 where i just used to leave the wifi on all day ...
Location-based WiFi Auto-On/Off – Feature Suggestions for Windows Phone upvote this suggestion.........

 

[kurtms]

This isn't really Cortana related but whatever. I've heard that new APIs will allow developers to connect apps to the messaging hub like Facebook chat and stuff. Is that true? Thanks

 

[amitnahar]

Nice thread.

 

[Squeegies]

I am working on an app that will allow the capturing of logs and other data. These issues are REALLY hard for us as we have a full line of devices we test with (multiple carriers as well) and without more information, it's hard to get to the root of. I'll update the OP when I have something.

\

Even though you cannot search for Cortana in the market place, she is still an app on the device (with just a bit deeper integration in the OS than any other app). We're still working on how updates will roll out. It will either be app updates or through GDR updates (which will be coming more frequently).



This is on the drawing board, but you have to remember that with the Cortana API, Dev's can do MANY of the Cortana features people are wanting. No roadmap placement on this feature yet.



Here Drive is NOT a Microsoft application. It is a Nokia app and even through we are taking over phone/devices from Nokia, the Here apps are not coming with it. As for the built in maps, there is a lot of integrations there already, but there will be a lot more in the future (they will come in the form of Map app update, Cortana back end and maybe even an app update to Cortana).

Sir, is it safe for you to mention these progress from Microsoft? Or we'll just hope that these things are coming out soon? Thanks..