Features WE would like to see in cortana.

[Leon Dounoucos]

A Cortana Avatar /and/ Hey Cortana:

I would like to see cortana as a fully rendered digital assistant when I say Hey Cortana, she appears mid screen, smiles and blinks moves her hands or shifts her pose a bit. She can even be set where to appear and then say how can i assist you or something along those lines and she would be over any currently running app on focus is lost her avatar would go away until I ask her something else. Maybe the ability to download and change on demand a set of avatars or wardrobes? Today I want her in her best business suit but tomorrow I may want her in a cocktail dress? Anyone else have opinions on this?

I also would like to change what command activates her maybe an option to train her speech recognition for what phrase I want for example i could train Hello cortana or Yo, cortana or Cortana wake up just as an example i'm sure many users would have their own views on what command is best for them instead of the generic hey cortana. Perhaps I personally would like to drop the hey altogether? "Cortana... what is the weather?".

Cortana Voice Sets:

I would like to be able to download, install and change on demand, cortana voice sets. perhaps today I want her to be british accent? or tomorrow a Chinese assistant? anyone else want a female Yodda or some obscure voice set? I as all who read this, Let everyone here know what YOU think.
:evil:

 

[ven07]

I also would like to change what command activates her maybe an option to train her speech recognition for what phrase I want for example i could train Hello cortana or Yo, cortana or Cortana wake up just as an example i'm sure many users would have their own views on what command is best for them instead of the generic hey cortana. Perhaps I personally would like to drop the hey altogether? "Cortana... what is the weather?".

Out of all your suggestions, this seems to be the only plausible one... for now

 

[Nevets68]

Google - Ms.Dewey.

 

[astondg]

I would like to see cortana as a fully rendered digital assistant when I say Hey Cortana, she appears mid screen, smiles and blinks moves her hands or shifts her pose a bit. She can even be set where to appear and then say how can i assist you or something along those lines and she would be over any currently running app on focus is lost her avatar would go away until I ask her something else. Maybe the ability to download and change on demand a set of avatars or wardrobes? Today I want her in her best business suit but tomorrow I may want her in a cocktail dress? Anyone else have opinions on this?

A lot of this sounds like Clippy

 

[Marko Marjanovic]

And someday you want her in spandex and use ,,all hail domitarix cortana" as voice commad..or even holigram for..lonely nights.

It aint cheating if shes 10010011

 

[Paulo1300]

how is cortana now-a-days in wm10? i installed wm10 about 5 builds ago on my icon and the two things i couldnt deal with were the battery life (which seems fixed based on comments above) and cortana.

My issues with cortana were specifically in the local features. Cortana in 8.1 is much more local friendly. For example, if i type "walmart" in cortana in 8.1, it will show me nearby walmarts within my search, and if it doesnt, i can swipe to the local pane to see nearby walmarts.

In wm10, if i searched walmart, it literally just did like a bing.com search for walmart without any local abilities. Then, if I typed "nearby walmarts", it would show me the nearby walmarts BUT it wouldnt show me how far away they were on the search page. Am i supposed to assume the one on top is the closest one? WP8.1 shows the distance, phone number, and an option for directions for anything that has to do with a location.

Outside of fixing local in wm10, one suggestion I would like cortana to integrate would be the features from the "join conference" application. I wish that was just part of cortana. Aka, she just reads through your emails and knows when you have meetings, so if you say "join conference" to her, she automatically joins your conference (including entering the pin number of your conference call). I know that she can already just open the "join conference" app, but that isnt as cool as having it fulling integrated into cortana.

 

[astondg]

My issues with cortana were specifically in the local features. Cortana in 8.1 is much more local friendly. For example, if i type "walmart" in cortana in 8.1, it will show me nearby walmarts within my search, and if it doesnt, i can swipe to the local pane to see nearby walmarts.

I noticed that too but it seems to be a lot better in the latest build. I'm in Australia running Cortana via the US region/language 'hack' and if I search for Target (don't have Walmart here) I get a list of results with a map & each results lists the distance, address and link to reviews. I also have package tracking, weather, all the news items, etc. and I've noticed more voice commands giving Cortana native results rather than a web search. I can't say specifically which ones but a few builds back I seemed to be mostly getting web results and now I mostly get native results.

 

[Axeelant]

I love the OP's idea that she could use an avatar. Something from Halo perhaps Dressing her up is a bit much, but some visual would be nice. Also, her live tile could be just the circle, without any text (no option for that atm), or her avatar.

I'm the kind of user who turns off Celluar and Wifi, so i think she could have an option to download some things, that way she could do more offline, and save time and battery.