Cortana doesn't like kids!

[astroXP]

Lil' Johnny will be disappointed once I give back his phone (no service) this afternoon.

 

[mrbobsmith]

what did you do to get this?

 

[jmshub]

I'd say there are legal issues with storing personal information with people under 13, since many websites ask if you are at least 13.

 

[slipslip]

I actually tweeted to Joe Belifiore asking whether Cortana would work within Kids Corner. Didn't get a reply.

I think jmshub is right about the legal issues related to minors, but I also wonder whether it could also have to do with voice recognition. Children's voices, especially very young ones, are quite different from adults, so you'd really need to train the voice recognition with voice data from chidlren, which I suspect no one has really done adequately yet.

It's a shame, really, because in many ways voice is the perfect user interaction modality for kids. Young children who can't read yet do fine with many touch and icon based interfaces-- they are happy to experiment touching various things and seeing what happens (to the chagrin of parents sometimes!), but as soon as they hit a dialog box, they come running back to you to help them figure out whether to hit the button with the "O" or the one with the "C"!

In the future, though, I can imagine a scenario where a child could talk to Cortana and ask her to tell them a story. When she can reply "Sure, honey", imagine the love that child will develop for this inanimate object.

 

[astroXP]

what did you do to get this?

This phone belongs to my 10-year-old brother. He uses it just for the Xbox games

I'd say there are legal issues with storing personal information with people under 13, since many websites ask if you are at least 13.

Thought so too. Does Siri or Google Now restricts children as well?

I think jmshub is right about the legal issues related to minors, but I also wonder whether it could also have to do with voice recognition. Children's voices, especially very young ones, are quite different from adults, so you'd really need to train the voice recognition with voice data from chidlren, which I suspect no one has really done adequately yet.

I will actually have to test this. I'm going to change my brother birthday and see if this could be easily bypassed. If Cortana can candle my lil' brother voice then it is because of legal issues.

 

[krycus21]

Works on my phone with my 5 year old daughter.

 

[Grenzeloos]

My 12 year old daughter can't access it on her phone. I went to family safety settings to try and get her access, no can do. She is going to be pissed. She's the loner in tech usage in her group. Only windows phone user. They give her crap about not having an iPhone and she was hoping for some other ammo besides her xbox music account .

 

[MyNamesTheDoctor]

This is a problem. Parents should be able to override this somehow. Children should be able to use Cortana with their parents permission if the parent has set the permissions as would be required. Microsoft should do something about this issue. That would be preferable. Or a section option would be to simply disable the parts of Cortana that store information about the user, if the user is under age 13. It would still be useful, just less personalized.

 

[oldpueblo]

I was just about to set my 12 year old son up with a windows phone with no SIM, because he's at the age where he needs to organize his stuff in a calendar, answer e-mails, he can skype me while I'm on the go, etc. The first hurdle I hit was the store told me he I have to go accept the EULA or something on his account. But it didn't tell me where or how to do this, and I haven't been able to find it. It's pretty frustrating. Now I see this and it makes me just want to lie about his age. There has to be a better way, a way for parents to opt out and say yes we trust our kids, etc.

For the record I have an untangle server set up between my router and everything Internet enabled in my house. Trust me I know what goes on.

 

[Zulfigar]

How old do you think Master Chief was before Cortana helped him? Exactly. I think 13 is reasonable, considering it's going to be in the 20's-30's before Cortana will help someone in about 500 years.

 

[oldpueblo]

Yay they actually updated the store message in 8.1 preview. It told me to go to windowsphone.com/family and there I could add a kid as a windowsphone user, then it worked for store apps. Now how to get Corana to work...

 

[quantum tao]

maddox would make an awesome cortana for kids: A message from adults to kids.

 

[knuckles245]

My daughter is 11 with a Lumia 521 without a SIM (WiFi access only) and she is able to use Cortana.

 

[oldpueblo]

My kids accounts are specifically set up as child accounts, that might be what's causing it.

 

[falconrap]

See the main story. It's the child protection act that keeps MS from allowing Cortana to work with kids due to the data that it has to collect on you to work right.