Cortana slowly starting to look like a killer feature.

[Simon Tupper]

And half of the plans get watered down when we talk about the non-native english speaking market which is probably most of WPs market. I don't have my appointments in english, having it try to pronounce finnish would just be silly

As a French Canadian I hear you on that one. I sometimes have to repeat a command two or three times to make sure the AI understood the right command. I think it's a lot better than a few years ago when there was no way for ANY voice assistant to understand my accent. It should get better with time.

 

[AngryNil]

There's a search button on my WP8 and a search charm across Windows 8, so I'm all for actually using them. One thing I want is a de-emphasis on voice. Let me choose to type to it by default and I'm in.

 

[Ridemyscooter86]

It hopefully will be, so long as they keep the name cortana and don't name it (as some other user on another thread said) "Microsoft virtual navigator assistant 8.1" or something lol...


I'll tell you what would be really cool is if they integrated it into ms office products, like star trek TNG kind of stuff, like where in excel, for example you could say "take this data set and give me the standard deviation" and it would do it at say what it got. I think something like this is a little off into the future but one can hope...

 

[WinFan1]

i just want to be able to accurately do the things i wanna do. TellMe is a quite lacking in regards to commands. For example, Cortana set reminder for the Boston Red Sox game, the New York Yankees game, and the Tampa Bay Rays game, and keep me updated with scores.

or maybe; keep me updated with weather conditions to prepare as needed for the week.

keep me posted about new game releases based on recommendations from information gathered from my gamerscore.

give me bus and train schedules to work every morning.

locations to all the nearest cafes for morning coffee.

and i think app interaction would be cool, for example Cortana notify me when there are new posts on wpcentral.

movie tickets and time available if it hears me talking about a particular movie. i think information gathering on cortana and integration into your home is the way to go.

 

[nohra]

There is so much potential for speech command, MS can leap if they get it right, and allow it to integrate into non-MS apps. I really want to be able to tell HERE apps to find a particular place and then once it finds it, just tell it to direct me there via HERE Drive. That's the biggest one for me, because I really want to use HERE, Urbanspoon, Yelp type apps while i'm driving, but there's just limited voice commands at this point. Not much beyond "Open Here Drive" right now...

Nokia's conquering cameras, now it's time to conquer voice command.

 

[EauRouge]

I just love that its named Cortana <3. Oh chief, my master chief

 

[Coreldan]

There is so much potential for speech command, MS can leap if they get it right, and allow it to integrate into non-MS apps. I really want to be able to tell HERE apps to find a particular place and then once it finds it, just tell it to direct me there via HERE Drive. That's the biggest one for me, because I really want to use HERE, Urbanspoon, Yelp type apps while i'm driving, but there's just limited voice commands at this point. Not much beyond "Open Here Drive" right now...

Nokia's conquering cameras, now it's time to conquer voice command.

And the problem comes once again with non-english addresses. Since it's not a realistic vision to think they would make this stuff for many different languages outside the few most common, this feature would never reach the majority of the userbase.

And I think this will remain as the primary problem for all voice-commanding things. I think Siri is a similarly a joke outside english-speaking countries. While perhaps people don't mind talking english to their phone on the streets, but taking these ideas further into localized stuff (mostly pronouncing local stuff like addresses, places, etc) will not be internationally viable before this is tackled. And the only solution to this is that these systems are optimized and localized for different languages but this will still continue to alinate a huge amount of users cos let's face it, in Europe we could perhaps consider a handful different languages getting localized at best. Well, one can argue that that is where the users are, then, but let's take Finland. One of the biggest market shares percentage wise for WP in the world, but since it's a small country, the numbers are still fairly small. Seeing the whole Nokia-MS thing though, I guess finnish might be implemented as a localized language, but most smaller countries would not enjoy the same luxury.

So, these features will not be something mainstream and for everyone to enjoy for years to come, if ever.

 

[martinmc78]

And the problem comes once again with non-english addresses. Since it's not a realistic vision to think they would make this stuff for many different languages outside the few most common, this feature would never reach the majority of the userbase.

Possibly not... They have had to make huge leaps in speech recognition with the xbox one launch to get that global and part of the reason for the delay in some EU countries is down to voice command translation. In 6 months when its up and running globally and with the feedback involved from all the different accents and inflections MS will have a large speech database to work from and you can add in the massive database from bing translate. It stands to reason that they would use this info for Cortana. Revolution remember, not evolution.

 

[martinmc78]

i think information gathering on cortana and integration into your home is the way to go.

Precisely - Imagine Cortana being an integrated part of the xbox one further down the line with her own set of voice commands. If its all going to be fully integrated I should be able to just call out from my kitchen "Cortana I need more milk"

Kinect mic pics up the command - Cortana kicks in and creates a shopping list on my phone via one note. Then using location services on my phone as soon as im near a food store I get a reminder "pick up milk"

 

[poken1151]

As with all things in MS's current phone division it comes down to three main things:
- Will it work as advertised?
- Will it even be advertised well?
- Will it have enough features to be competitive?
- BONUS will it come out in a time that it still matters?

Those are the main things. MS has a great product here, but they are moving rather slowly compared to their main competitors. Regardless of what many try to say, what's keeping MS afloat are Nokia's ferocity in attack and advertising and a strong group of small users.

Otherwise, as a NL920 user, I can say that I always get the feeling they're about 18 months behind to be competitive. That is, when GDDR3 comes out, I'm sure fans will laud it, but it won't make the bang I feel it should. Why? Lost in the current standing just implementing things that were worth noting a year before, but are so expected now potential users may just say "wait, it's just getting a feature like this?"

So I'll have high hopes for Cortana actually existing, and even existing in a way we are hoping (I always thought it'd be a no brainer to have our xbox Avatars be our PA's since every device has one, they'd pop up reminding us and everything, while making things personal). But if it's still not on a basic level of interface as Google Now or Siri, then people will be feeling kinda sorta let down. So I'll hold my hopes down a bit for now.

MS has the opportunity to do these awesome implementations... I really ant them to deliver...

 

[martinmc78]

As with all things in MS's current phone division it comes down to three main things:
- Will it work as advertised?
- Will it even be advertised well?

Only there isn't a phone "division" anymore, there are no more silo's hence the confirmation the stores will all be merging. Things are changing for the better finally.

 

[poken1151]

Good Point on that. I mis-posted just now, so it wasn't finished, though my outlook wasn't much better later on, haha.

I can understand that, really I do. But experiencing re-orgs as often as I have, I wouldn't be surprised if it's gonna be a while before we as consumers can even see the benefits (if there are many) of the re-org. I'd hope this is the case.

I mean take current rumors; merge WP and W8Metro side. Get snapping on your phone, cross platform virtual assistant (Megaman style PET's would be cool, our avatars are already half way there being on our devices, and yes, I'm serious to an extent here). Surface RT without the desktop to diminish confusion. These are good things, awesome things, but things that have to be implemented sooner rather than later. Ms's pockets are keeping them afloat on all this, along with consumers like us who like what we've been seeing. But some mix of speed and heavy changelogs are needed to spike more interest.

 

[martinmc78]

Completely agree with you. They've got the tools there and a clear direction of where they need to be going. Like or loathe Ballmer the foundations hes laid before departure are pretty solid. Lets just hope the new CEO has the drive to push the whole thing along faster.

 

[poken1151]

Mmm, that new CEO part has me gravely worried though. A lot of the Shareholders are shouting for a departure. And yes, I agree in that I think Ballmer's ensured a solid path ahead, shoot, even this re-org was long over due in general. People'd point out the different brains of MS and how they don't converse. I don't know what happened in his latter years, but something/someone shook him up, for the better.

But a new CEO with different goals in mind can easily unravel all of it. If someone with good vision and leadership with a positive view on the consumer areas can get in there, it'd be perfect. The other puzzle pieces are already in place... So close...

 

[frankelweeze]

Having an always-on assistant has been tried before and wasn't exactly the most successful feature if I remember correctly.

 

[WinFan1]

Having an always-on assistant has been tried before and wasn't exactly the most successful feature if I remember correctly.

View attachment 44807

yeah but from what it sounds like it seems as though this assistant will actually be useful though i do love clippy... Free clippy 2013!

 

[Simon Tupper]

Having an always-on assistant has been tried before and wasn't exactly the most successful feature if I remember correctly.

View attachment 44807

True, but cortana wouldn't have to pop up (I hope so)

 

[martinmc78]

True, but cortana wouldn't have to pop up (I hope so)

Oh now I wouldn't mind. Cortana certainly can "pop"

 

[Simon Tupper]

Oh now I wouldn't mind. Cortana certainly can "pop"

View attachment 44810View attachment 44811

"You received a SMS Chief want me to read it?"

 

[martinmc78]

"You received a SMS Chief want me to read it?"

Wonder if she would get angry and crack the screen like the xbox avatars do if you shake the phone and make them fall over too many times.