Cortana REQUIRES location

[TheBadGuy_88]

That makes all the sense!! Thanks for the clarification! I'm turning my location on RIGHT NOW!

 

[TechAbstract]

It needs to know your location to give you right time, local places, distance from one place to another, and other things that need to know your location. I don't commit crime, so I don't care what the government knows about me. They probably know everything about me already lol

 

[HerrHerger]

I also don't like it ... battery life sucks already.

 

[ttsoldier]

I really hope they change this. too much of a battery hog.

reminders don't even work if you have location off. really stupid imo

 

[ovancantfort]

Yes, it is particularly stupid that time-based reminders disappear from your calendar and will not trigger if locations services are off. Conclusion: for now, I will refrain to use them at all. They are anyway redundant with tasks and appointments, with the additional disadvantage that they appear only on your phone.
Another stupidity is that quiet hours is managed by Cortana. No idea why! Does it require a clould-based AI to silence your phone from 23:00 to 7:00 ??? But again, turn off your location services and quiet hours are gone!
I do have the habit of switching off services like wifi, bluetooth and location when I do not need them in order to save battery. So, this is a HUGE disappointment. I am on the verge of turning off Cortana permanently.
Anyway, as for now, Cortana is pretty useless in Belgium because Bing is total crap. Bing map has zero local search hability here. Even if a shop name appears on the map, a search for this name will return zero results....:unhappy:

 

[rockstarzzz]

Why? Because that's Cortana's job. To "learn about you all the time". Part of this learning is knowing what you do, where you do, how you spend you time. I totally appreciate listening to those two videos, I watched them, trust me! I was surprised that Geoengineering was discussed on a smartphone website, I am impressed. But, the word you want to look into and learn about and know about is - machine learning. Machine learning to be honest has been around for over a decade. We've done that manually in 1990s and in 2000s we as a human race have become smarter and we have very intelligent programmers at our disposal who have thrown exceptional algorithms in the mix. One machine learning example, I would like to use here is what I've seen with my eyes just a week ago. In a local hospital, a friend showed me this nifty tool that learns about the patient hooked into that machine. Of course there are pretty nurses taking notes and keeping it ready for the doctors to walk in and read to see how the patient is doing. But what this clever algorithm designed by a human, does is, it keeps track of all the vitals of that patient and also keeps track of what is being given to the patient, in dosage - mg/mL units. It then records amount of urination, the viscosity, the density of fluid etc. Now expect that from a doctor to sit and do..it will take days. This machine learns about the patient and then generates reports that help doctors to see things they wouldn't normally know about the patient real time unless they actually sent samples for tests in a lab.

Coming back to Cortana, it is an AI. It has to depend heavily on machine learning if AI is going to be your personal assistant. It is part of the program by which Microsoft engineers want to source in data from multiple users, then the machine (here will be a set of gigantic serves, running a script that involves more than 10-15 algorithms at least) will learn about usage patterns, key location taggings etc. and generate relevant answers in future. For example, if about 20 of us on this site work in a grocery store, every time our location of that grocery store is tagged as "work" the machine learns about users that they work at a grocery store. Then it puts two and two together when you will say "when I am at grocery store next..remind me..." It won't wait for you to be at another grocery store but will be intelligent enough to remind you at work that you may want to collect something from here while you work. This is just an example. But if you compare this to my real life machine learning, you will know that machine learning has no limits to it. You can tailor it to be as intelligent and evolving as you want. Location is part of this machine learning process where it doesn't only want to know how you communicate but also wants to know places where you are so that it learns about you.

Honestly, if people are so scared of NSA and governments tagging and doing what not - either you are involved in something that is way scary or you just aren't ready for the technology next 10 years is going to bring. There is nothing wrong with technology that learns things about human and makes life easier. Isn't that the way how PCs came in our lives? Now, look at it, we are communicating from totally different ends of the world! If you have an issue with it being store on a cloud from some corporation, this is the same corporation that makes our PCs, gaming consoles, phones and this very browser I am using to write you a reply from. Their sole motive here is "making money" they DO NOT care about what places you visit in your leisure time. They do not care about what you eat. If these giant companies with billions of dollars aren't going to explore ways of using technology, government isn't allowed to use it - who on this earth will make advances in technology? You, me and a bunch of folks at WPCentral? They have money, they have technology, we want it to advance - so be it.

I say, it is about time we stop living a paranoid life where we think everyone cares to know what we do in our lives, but instead live this amazing decade or two of technology because it is going to be freakin' awesome era to be a part of!

TLDR; Read about machine learning.

 

[ttsoldier]

I'm not concerned about nsa. I'm concerned about battery life

 

[eruptflail]

As for location, the government already knows where you work and live. you give up all that info when you pay taxes and get a job. if youre afraid to do either of those things, you have bigger issues. Also, why would the gov't want to create storms? they have to pay for all the damages... the biggest issue with location services is that it kills battery, not that people can take your data. Anyone with 5$ can get your address and ssn if they have your name and birthday...

 

[Tepid]

Here's a thought.
Why don't you vet who you vote for, hold politicians and media's feet to the fire.
Vote with your dollars.

Make sure you know the person, not their hand outs and platitudes.
You sell your vote, you get what you deserve.

If you are truly worried about Big Gov't, vote for smaller Gov't.

If you can't do any of that, or do not vote, don't complain. it's your fault.

As for Cortana, at this time, I trust MS before I will ever trust Google.
But to be honest, you can't trust any of them.

But, here's another thought....
Stop putting your entire lives on Facebook and Twitter.
NSA doesn't really need to do all that much tapping or access to Cortana. the majority of peoples lives are already willfully promulgated on the net.

 

[MyNL822]

I'm pretty sure it does affect the battery life, I can barely use my phone throughout the SCHOOL(Meaning I don't use it very often) day just to get home with battery at 25%, I got home with 45-50% when location was off the whole day, but battery is pretty bad in WP 8.1.

 

[rockstarzzz]

I'm pretty sure it does affect the battery life, I can barely use my phone throughout the SCHOOL(Meaning I don't use it very often) day just to get home with battery at 25%, I got home with 45-50% when location was off the whole day, but battery is pretty bad in WP 8.1.

You mean in WP8.1 preview, that doesn't have correct firmware update on it? Yeah, it is bad (as expected).

 

[ajj3085]

The NSA loves naive people like you, so do hackers! You sit there texting the red cross to help the so called natural disaster you see on TV not knowing your giving money to the same people who caused the storm! Cortana is cool but i don't need my home, my work, my favorite food places, my route to work, my friends house, my mothers house, my girlfriends house, the train route, my voice, my search history all sitting in the cloud somewhere one SSL slip up away from prying eyes. Especially in the cloud owned by companies that do business with the NSA! I'm not a conspiracy theorist or some hermit creep hiding in the basement with tin foil on my head. I ama a realist with a realistic view of the world today. Cortana has alot of functions that can be used without REQUIRING my location she can do 90% of those Bing search queries without requiring your location.

Doing anything on the internet narrows down your location at least to the city level, perhaps even to the building since your access point has an ip that can only be used in one place. And the cell signals can be used to triangulate your position pretty accurately too.

So worrying about GPS is like worrying about the rain while you're on the titanic. I'd say you're helping the NSA more by saying GPS on your phone is the only way to track you.

If you're serious , you probably should just get rid of your cell phone.

 

[Stephen Pedersen]

You mean in WP8.1 preview, that doesn't have correct firmware update on it? Yeah, it is bad (as expected).

Redundant. What else is redundant is that it will help battery life if the locations is turned off.

 

[rockstarzzz]

Redundant. What else is redundant is that it will help battery life if the locations is turned off.

Are you suggesting incorrect drivers for your radio and screen have nothing to do with drain?

 

[TheBadGuy_88]

There's some really cool point of views in this thread! I definitely will look into more machine learning information, I know about it but you piqued my curiosity. I also understand why Cortana NEEDS your location for geofencing, some reminders, its just the lack of choice, Cortana should be flexible. She really doesn't need more than an internet connection to set an alarm. She doesn't even need that. I definitely see the benefits of Cortana knowing your location and I DO use her, I just don't think her not having your location is as crippling as having to disable her. I couldnt care less about battery. I have a 1520 I can make it from sleep to sleep without metering my battery which is fine by me, no matter how long I go with out sleep.

 

[TheBadGuy_88]

Doing anything on the internet narrows down your location at least to the city level, perhaps even to the building since your access point has an ip that can only be used in one place. And the cell signals can be used to triangulate your position pretty accurately too.

So worrying about GPS is like worrying about the rain while you're on the titanic. I'd say you're helping the NSA more by saying GPS on your phone is the only way to track you.

If you're serious , you probably should just get rid of your cell phone.

I NEVER said GPS is the only way to track you, never. And I totally understand the concept of cellular triangulation. However there are MAJOR differences between the two. Cellular triangulation is more of a ping unless there is an active connection. And a ping that's relatively precise. Glonass and agps give an always on and constant stream of precise latitude and longitude. And I don't mind Cortana having that information, she is my personal assistant, it's what's done with that info that bothers me. I brought up the NSA because a poster was being naive in saying the government doesn't monitor peoples information, I was merely responding to that. I couldn't care less about the NSA, I have nothing to hide.

However, I did notice Microsoft saying Cortana keeps information on your phone but then see Bing.com say that it uploads Cortana's information. This is google-ish in its nature and I hate google. I'm not into my life being sold to the highest bidder so they can send me ads they can spam me with because they think I'll be more likely to click. My lifestyle and my interest shouldn't be for sale. To companies who will then try to sell me something. And dint think that's not why their mining all of your data, they're always trying to use our data for more money. But its somewhat unavoidable I get it and I am always for progress! I am explicitly excited where technology will take us this decade and next. We may actually catch up to the ancient Egyptians! They were LIGHT YEARS ahead of us!