How Cortana Comes to Life in Windows 10

It's very rare that I can get Cortana to respond to Hey Cortana. I usually have to hit the microphone icon. Then it's very limited to what it will do. I hope to see some improvements in the next build.

Cortana has great promise. I say this from using this "assistant" daily on my Windows 8.1 Phone (Lumia 635). Some verbal commands that I use:

Shuffle - Cortana plays my music

Pause or Resume - Cortana stops, Cortana resumes playing music

Weather - Cortana tells me temperature, present conditions and displays details. I can ask for weather conditions in another city.

Open OneNote - Cortana opens OneNote (my grocery shopping list).

Remind me - Cortana will ask for the "what and when" details, repeat the reminder and ask if it is correct.

Rich

Indianatone said:

Yeah this is going to work really well.........They can't even get a simple update for Office 2010 to work correctly. I would NOT put all my trust in this application. Windows Phone has hardly any public take up so the program probably works fairly well in testing as only Microsofties have the phone. What happens when all the fanbois get on the servers at the same time asking stupid questions. Will it crash and burn? As Sheldon Cooper said "Don't mock the flawed technology" I know it is not for me, what with Samsung's voice activated TV spying on people and M$ wanting people to trust their lives to a talking computer lady is no one concerned about their privacy? And what does this feature have to do with OS anyway? This should be one of the extra non core of the OS.

I agree, what?!

On Windows Phone, Cortana works perfectly fine, for some reason Windows 10 is hit and miss.

It is an extra, non-core part of the OS. Cortana is partly meant as the future of search and be useful as an assistant that learns about you to be more proactive. If you have a busy schedule and have several things to be on top of, Cortana is meant to be there to help with that. If you don't want that or need that, you don't have to use it.

Cortana is one of several overarching themes with Windows 10, the Natural User Interface based off touch, gesture, gaze, and speech inputs. It's meant to humanize computing.

Lee said:

We still have another six months at least so don't get you selves all worked up just yet. . .something new takes time to get right. . .oh and for those who think that MS isn't doing their way. . .well. . .

Remember how it was with the Start Screen back in Windows 8 and how some people refused to use it and didn't care for it nor understood why it was there and all this and that?

Yeah, some of those same people are here that like using the Start Screen now. I agree, give it six months and we'll be seeing post along the lines of, "Cortana-she's actually pretty useful!"

Coke Robot said:

Lee said:

We still have another six months at least so don't get you selves all worked up just yet. . .something new takes time to get right. . .oh and for those who think that MS isn't doing their way. . .well. . .

Remember how it was with the Start Screen back in Windows 8 and how some people refused to use it and didn't care for it nor understood why it was there and all this and that?

Yeah, some of those same people are here that like using the Start Screen now. I agree, give it six months and we'll be seeing post along the lines of, "Cortana-she's actually pretty useful!"

I don't think the Start Screen was the issue, I believe not having a Windows 7 type menu was the issue, and having the Start Screen the only option. I know for myself that is what I dislike most about Windows 8/8.1 is not having a menu. I installed Start8 and there were no issues after that.

I think that is why the Start Screen and Windows 8 got a bad reputation. It is a great way to manage Metro, better than the dumb tiled system in Wiindows 10, IMO. I much prefer managing metro in the Windows 8 tradition, Charms bar, hot corners and all.

Trust_No1 said:

Coke Robot said:

Lee said:

We still have another six months at least so don't get you selves all worked up just yet. . .something new takes time to get right. . .oh and for those who think that MS isn't doing their way. . .well. . .

Remember how it was with the Start Screen back in Windows 8 and how some people refused to use it and didn't care for it nor understood why it was there and all this and that?

Yeah, some of those same people are here that like using the Start Screen now. I agree, give it six months and we'll be seeing post along the lines of, "Cortana-she's actually pretty useful!"

I don't think the Start Screen was the issue, I believe not having a Windows 7 type menu was the issue, and having the Start Screen the only option. I know for myself that is what I dislike most about Windows 8/8.1 is not having a menu. I installed Start8 and there were no issues after that.

I think that is why the Start Screen and Windows 8 got a bad reputation. It is a great way to manage Metro, better than the dumb tiled system in Wiindows 10, IMO. I much prefer managing metro in the Windows 8 tradition, Charms bar, hot corners and all.

Please least not go back to that tired old subject. . .this is about Cortana.

MikeHawthorne said:

So I'm hoping that she will be more capable after the next Windows 10 update later this month.
I would really like it if I could just say "Send and email to John Doe" and have her take dictation and send it.

And I'd like to have her take notes and save them as text files.

Ditto here.
I use Cortana mainly on my Windows Phone where she is "more sophisticated" than on my desktop. I tried to send email but that is not functioning either (yet?) on the Windows 8.1 Phone. As indicated before, I believe Cortana has a lot of potential.