Cortana could be US only

[Zeem Frostmaw]

And? I'm from the UK, i won't get it either, it may not understand me if i get the US version.

If Microsoft had said nothing at all, nobody would be moaning. But because they tell people, and give them a realistic timeframe, rather than what they want, they are up in arms.

People need to be more patient.

Well put.

 

[meddyrainzo]

The inaccuracies of MSFTNerd
Stripped-down Xbox due in late 2013 - Microsoft Console - Neowin Forums
Rumor: 'Cortana' digital assistant for Windows Phone to launch in April for Lumia developers - Neowin

I think I'll wait till sites like WPCentral and the Verge report this(The US only news) before I believe it.

 

[a5cent]

Can't we all just get along?

I think highly of everyone I replied to in my last post. If things seem a little heated, it's only because I find it a tad frustrating that I'm apparently unable to comprehensibly explain a point that I find should be a very simple one, namely that language support has no bearing on this issue:

1. MS already has the speech recognition technology in place for many different languages. For at least half a dozen languages, TellMe (already on WP7) works just as well as it does for U.S. English. It isn't the lack of speech recognition technology for languages other than English, that is preventing MS from rolling out services like Cortana across more countries.
2. Even if MS did lack speech recognition technology for languages other than English, that still wouldn't be a legitimate reason to geographically restrict access to services like Cortana, because many people outside the U.S. are just fine using U.S. English and would actually prefer it.

 

[michail71]

This thread really blew up but didn't something similar happen with Siri?

 

[Phone Guy 4567]

I think people's frustration has very little to do with Cortana, Cortana is just another irritant in a poor international experience with WP. I would have no problem with MS being US focused with their services except that they sell WP internationally. WP market share is much higher in many international markets then it is in the US ,and any gains WP has seen in getting official big name 3rd party apps is due to this international growth IMO.

 

[Jas00555]

Come on people, use your head. Seriously, sometimes the ignorance here just baffles me. Microsoft can't release it to all WP users at the same time. Why can't they? Look at Siri as the perfect example. Apple released it worldwide and for 2 years I heard nothing but how bad she was at understanding things, and Apple actually has positive brand recognition. Could you imagine if MS released this worldwide without putting it in beta? They'd be laughed at by ever tech blogger in the world. Haven't they had enough of that from dumb f****s hating the Xbox One? If I were Microsoft, I would do precisely the same thing.

As to why the US first? Well, besides the fact that that's where they're located and can make updates easier, it's also because it's the smallest market, which is EXACTLY how you do a beta. You don't roll out a beta to as many people as possible, you do the exact opposite. That way, when it gets generally rolled out, you already fixed the kinks.

If they want to release it as an app or through the enthusiast program to non-US owners, so be it, but anyone who has serious disappointment with this needs to step back and think for a second.

 

[crystal_planet]

And? I'm from the UK, i won't get it either, it may not understand me if i get the US version.

If Microsoft had said nothing at all, nobody would be moaning. But because they tell people, and give them a realistic timeframe, rather than what they want, they are up in arms.

No kidding. Jesus, we never even heard the term "Cortana" a couple of months ago - now all of a sudden people are going to leave the platform if it's not available in their country the same time as the US? You have got to be kidding me.

If it's such a big freaking deal, why aren't you in Apple Land spooning Siri?

Honestly, Windows Phone has the distinction of having the largest number of whiners out of any platform. Just think if Cortana goes live around the globe all at once, we can go back to crying about a notification center or whatever else there is to cry about.

 

[colinkiama]

No kidding. Jesus, we never even heard the term "Cortana" a couple of months ago - now all of a sudden people are going to leave the platform if it's not available in their country the same time as the US? You have got to be kidding me.

If it's such a big freaking deal, why aren't you in Apple Land spooning Siri?

Honestly, Windows Phone has the distinction of having the largest number of whiners out of any platform. Just think if Cortana goes live around the globe all at once, we can go back to crying about a notification center or whatever else there is to cry about.

if we don't whine and complain how will Microsoft know how to improve windows phone. And why isn't some of the features on xbox one like snapping apps and kinect on wp. I would be bragging to all my friends with iPhones and androids if i had these features

 

[heat 33330]

Surprise, surprise...

 

[colinkiama]

It's easy to get whiny and emotion when you want the platform you are on to succeed.

 

[Jazmac]

better if this is just a rumour.
but knowing MS's past record, i'm expecting this to be true.
if it happens, enough of WP.
i'll switch.
no xbox music/videos in most countries. also even data sense debuted as a US exclusive.
and ironically that is one market which isn't very responsive to WP.

That's a plan. Is your next choice android? Seems to me the only thing you want is if you can't have it, no one should get it. It has to demo somewhere so why not here? I hope you don't think that when it does roll out, there won't be bugs.

 

[neo158]

Who cares? Why is that even an issue? My U.S. neighbours have no more of an accent than you do (I assume you are an American). Why should anything relating to language support preclude them from accessing those services?

That's a typical American response and FYI, I'm British. Accents matter over here because people in the north don't have the same accent as people in the south. Regional Dialects matter in some countries where one word pronounced differently can have a totally different meaning.

That's why we you should care and why it's an issue!!

 

[a5cent]

That's a typical American response and FYI, I'm British. Accents matter over here because people in the north don't have the same accent as people in the south. Regional Dialects matter in some countries where one word pronounced differently can have a totally different meaning.

That's why we you should care and why it's an issue!!

Ehem... I'm not American either. I live in Switzerland, but some of my neighbours are from the U.S. And you still don't understand. At this point I'm at a loss and don't know how else to explain my point. Maybe someone else can help me out here, but I'll give it one last shot:

I'm not saying that supporting regional dialects and accents is unimportant. It's only unimportant for the point I'm trying to make. Even for the U.S. , regional dialect support is extremely important, as appalachian English is very different from how people speak in, say, Los Angeles. What I am saying is that the lack of support for any specific dialect or accent isn't a reason to disable Cortana outside the U.S. Many people in this thread argue that it makes sense to disable Cortana outside the U.S. , because they suspect it will initially support only U.S. English (that's BS, but lets stick with it for the sake of argument). Well, if I live in Yorkshire (because I just watched an episode of Downton Abbey), but set my smartphone to U.S. English, does it then still make sense to disable that service? At least as far as speech recognition is concerned, disabling that service is completely ridiculous. It makes absolutely no sense, and the people arguing that point here aren't making any sense either.

If people argued that it makes sense to disable a speech recognition service based on your device's language setting, that would make more sense. That isn't how MS' services work. It is not how Cortana is expected to work.

 

[Dantekai14]

Guys I don't think language is problem.
I think it's Bing. Bing is nothing more than third class boring search engine if you are not in USA.
So, if you ask cortana lets say weather reports it can't answer it because bing simple shows weather websites.
In my opinion bing is the real problem here and MS have to improve it before they lauch Cortana globally.
Now, whom to blame for bing services,
I think we all know whom

 

[a5cent]

Guys I don't think language is problem.
I think it's Bing. Bing is nothing more than third class boring search engine if you are not in USA.
So, if you ask cortana lets say weather reports it can't answer it because bing simple shows weather websites.
In my opinion bing is the real problem here and MS have to improve it before they lauch Cortana globally.
Now, whom to blame for bing services,
I think we all know whom

Yep. Exactly. This has already been mentioned a few times.

The only people who think speech recognition support for non-English speakers is the biggest problem, are those who have never seen TellMe working on a non-English smartphone (since WP7 Mango, and in many other products long before that).

Speech recognition is a very difficult problem to solve, but it has been a focus of computer research for well over three decades now, in which MS has always been heavily involved. It is also a problem that has a very generalized solution. MS doesn't need a Cortana specific speech recognition engine. Speech recognition is speech recognition... it works the same everywhere, for all services. The problem today is more related to what happens after speech recognition:

Once the speech recognition engine determines that the user said:

"What time will my aunt's flight arrive in London"

the digital assistant must figure out how to answer that question.

First it must determine which flight the user is referring too, which requires that the digital assistant understand family relations in general. It must then determine which of your aunts you may be referring to and which of them may be on a flight headed towards London, presently or in the near future. That task may be even more difficult if you call a long time family friend an aunt, which isn't strictly related by blood. Then the digital assistant must be able to look up flight information for any given airline and any given airport, including information about delayed flights, which will work differently in different countries. It must then make a distinction between local time and your current time (if you are not in the same time zone as London). Finally, the digital assistant also needs a way to present that information graphically and provide a synthesized verbal response that makes sense for flight information. All that just to answer a single question about flights. That is what Bing is eventually intended to do, but answering such questions requires the ability to integrate and query data from a whole range of national data sources. Bing in the U.S. is far closer to that goal. Outside the U.S. Bing is not even remotely close.

That is the problem.

 

[smoledman]

Please stop calling this "AI". It is not, and is nowhere even close. Not even in the same galaxy.

Then tell me what is in the same "galaxy".

 

[neo158]

Ehem... I'm not American either. I live in Switzerland, but some of my neighbours are from the U.S. And you still don't understand. At this point I'm at a loss and don't know how else to explain my point. Maybe someone else can help me out here, but I'll give it one last shot:

I'm not saying that supporting regional dialects and accents is unimportant. It's only unimportant for the point I'm trying to make. Even for the U.S. , regional dialect support is extremely important, as appalachian English is very different from how people speak in, say, Los Angeles. What I am saying is that the lack of support for any specific dialect or accent isn't a reason to disable Cortana outside the U.S. Many people in this thread argue that it makes sense to disable Cortana outside the U.S. , because they suspect it will initially support only U.S. English (that's BS, but lets stick with it for the sake of argument). Well, if I live in Yorkshire (because I just watched an episode of Downton Abbey), but set my smartphone to U.S. English, does it then still make sense to disable that service? At least as far as speech recognition is concerned, disabling that service is completely ridiculous. It makes absolutely no sense, and the people arguing that point here aren't making any sense either.

If people argued that it makes sense to disable a speech recognition service based on your device's language setting, that would make more sense. That isn't how MS' services work. It is not how Cortana is expected to work.

You misunderstand what I'm saying, accents, not the ones above typed words, but accents from different parts of a country are very important in speech recognition when trying to detect spoken words.

Dialects are important for the reason I already stated.

 

[a5cent]

You misunderstand what I'm saying, accents, not the ones above typed words, but accents from different parts of a country are very important in speech recognition when trying to detect spoken words.

No. I fully understood you. I mentioned appalacian English as an example of such an accent. Maybe re-read my last post?

 

[anon(8141431)]

if this rumour is true, I will leave windows phone

 

[SnailUK]

if this rumour is true, I will leave windows phone

that's amusing. Selling your phone because one beta app takes a while to get to your region.





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