Microsoft bringing Bing suite of apps to Android and iOS

[Rodrigo Pereira Teixeira]

Microsoft services must be allowed to roam on other platforms. It doesn't at all spell the end of WP. If you think MS spent billions for Nokia without a serious mission in mind, you are being a little short sighted.

Precisely. I'm ok with MSFT bringing their apps to Android and iOS. You make it easier for people to get a hold on it and have the experience. So, luckly they will ask themselves where they can get a better experience and, hopefully, migrate to WP.

The only thing I don't think MS will bring to other OS is Cortana, specially because she is the key-person on WP ads on North America.

 

[dKp1977]

Precisely. I'm ok with MSFT bringing their apps to Android and iOS. You make it easier for people to get a hold on it and have the experience. So, luckly they will ask themselves where they can get a better experience and, hopefully, migrate to WP.

The only thing I don't think MS will bring to other OS is Cortana, specially because she is the key-person on WP ads on North America.

Even if they brought Cortana to other platforms, it would nowhere be as deeply integrated as in WP. iOS doesn't even let any 3rd party app integrate like this with the entire OS, and even Android has its limitations.

 

[prasath1234]

Hope cortana is brought to android. Cortana needs some beta testers who are android users.ha haaa

 

[psoham777]

So after all Android needs Microsoft's services? Hahaha, lol

 

[tgp]

So after all Android needs Microsoft's services? Hahaha, lol ��

Not really, but Microsoft needs to have Android users using their services. 1,000,000,000+ users is a lot of potential!

 

[psudotechzealot]

It makes sense to do this.

 

[stephen_az]

Precisely. I'm ok with MSFT bringing their apps to Android and iOS. You make it easier for people to get a hold on it and have the experience. So, luckly they will ask themselves where they can get a better experience and, hopefully, migrate to WP.

The only thing I don't think MS will bring to other OS is Cortana, specially because she is the key-person on WP ads on North America.

They have long since acknowledged that they were exploring the possibility of going cross platform with Cortana. Cortana is also neither a she nor a person at all. It is a thing - a bit of code simulating artificial intelligence in a mobile OS. Cortana, Siri, etc., are not people and not even actual examples of artificial intelligence - just a bit of clever window dressing on pretty basic voice activation and search functions. I still find it disturbing every time some actual person refers to code in an inanimate object as being a person (and inevitably as a woman).....

 

[a5cent]

Cortana is also neither a she nor a person at all. It is a thing - a bit of code simulating artificial intelligence in a mobile OS. Cortana, Siri, etc., are not people and not even actual examples of artificial intelligence - just a bit of clever window dressing on pretty basic voice activation and search functions.

a)
Internally, MS staff also refer to Cortana as 'she'. As a result, so do many technical publications and that filters down to users as well. Despite all that, I don't think there is any real danger of anyone thinking there is a little woman hidden away in their smartphone.

The idea is to simulate, as closely as possible, a human personal assistant. That is the goal MS aspires to, and in that context it's reasonable to refer to that piece of software as 'her' (or optionally 'him'). It's partly about making it clear to everyone involved what the goal is. I don't think that is a bad thing.

b)
Nothing, absolutely nothing, about artificial intelligence or voice recognition is basic. Seriously, try to write down the math that can differentiate human voices from ambient noise and recognize individual words, and then watch how fast you fail.

Once you've got that, then realize that humans have dozens of ways to say the same thing, so just recognizing words isn't enough, you must also understand sentence structures and computationally be able to derive meaning and intent. And then do that for 20 different languages with different grammar and phonetics.

If you're talking about just a single language, then that is something that is trivial for a human brain, but it's not at all trivial for what is essentially nothing but a calculator.

 

[rdubmu]

I am still waiting for iMessage and FaceTime to come to windows, apple could have destroyed skype...

 

[TechFreak1]

Oh MS they never fail to amaze with their flip-flop decisions (which have not been bought on by users stamping their feet and making their voices heard), looks like petty office politics run pretty deeeep. As what logical reason is there to kill off the MSN branding and then revive it a few years later lol..

I just hope they don't rename Bing as MSN Search :grincry:.

I am still waiting for iMessage and FaceTime to come to windows, apple could have destroyed skype...

Probably when pigs fly and walk upright :winktongue:

 

[rdubmu]

They should have never killed off msn live, and same thing with Zune.

 

[jonnaver]

For those who dislike this notion, on what planet is a software company NOT pushing its products on platforms with a huge user base a good idea for that company? Look at it the other way around. Google makes sure their services are on Windows because of all the PC users out there. Why in the world wouldn't MS make sure their services are being used on android and iOS for the same reason?

 

[Jazmac]

a)
Internally, MS staff also refer to Cortana as 'she'. As a result, so do many technical publications and that filters down to users as well. Despite all that, I don't think there is any real danger of anyone thinking there is a little woman hidden away in their smartphone.

The idea is to simulate, as closely as possible, a human personal assistant. That is the goal MS aspires to, and in that context it's reasonable to refer to that piece of software as 'her' (or optionally 'him'). It's partly about making it clear to everyone involved what the goal is. I don't think that is a bad thing.

b)
Nothing, absolutely nothing, about artificial intelligence or voice recognition is basic. Seriously, try to write down the math that can differentiate human voices from ambient noise and recognize individual words, and then watch how fast you fail.

Once you've got that, then realize that humans have dozens of ways to say the same thing, so just recognizing words isn't enough, you must also understand sentence structures and computationally be able to derive meaning and intent. And then do that for 20 different languages with different grammar and phonetics.

If you're talking about just a single language, then that is something that is trivial for a human brain, but it's not at all trivial for what is essentially nothing but a calculator.

 

[doob9911]

I don't care. I use galaxy tab and outlook.com is much better than google. MS service like mail, calendar, contact, cloud drive, and office is much more important than wp. We can change phone brand at any time, but service not.

 

[a5cent]

My human brain takes offense, that you'd characterize an explanation of the difference between it and an automated calculator as "splitting hairs" :wink: