The Windows 10 Review: The Old & New Face of Windows
by Brett Howse on August 25, 2015 8:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Operating Systems
- Microsoft
- Windows 10
Changing the Way You Interact With Your PC: Meet Cortana
Digital personal assistants have graced our smartphones for a couple of years now. Traditionally, computers reacted to specific commands. Double click to open calendar. Select tomorrow. Right click. New. Reminder. Meeting about mortgage. At the bank. 3pm. Save. It’s the way it has always been, because as fast as computers are at certain tasks, they don’t speak any languages other than the commands that they know. Google Now, Siri, and Cortana on Windows Phone have allowed us a glimpse at natural language input on mobile devices, Microsoft is extending that functionality to all Windows 10 PCs with Cortana now available on the PC as well..
“Hey Cortana, remind me to go to the bank at 3pm tomorrow for my mortgage”
There is nothing you can do with Cortana that you could not have done manually yourself, but the goal of these digital assistants is to make certain tasks easier. At the moment, Cortana is certainly not an AI being, and as such, is still limited in what commands are possible. Anything that falls outside of the features of Cortana end up in a web search. For a full list of commands, ask Cortana for help and a list will appear. Cortana is able to do contextual searches and replies too, and can respond to follow up questions without having to restate the original question again.
You can use Cortana to search for what music is playing, track your flights, set appointments, give directions, and more. Over time, this will also expand to offer more functionality.
Cortana will of course respond to speech inputs, and can even be set to always be listening for Hey Cortana much like you see on smartphones these days, but it is also just as capable with text based input, and it is smart enough to know that if you talk to it, it can reply in audio, but if you type something in, it will reply with a text response.
Sitting at your desktop, you may be thinking that you don’t need or want this on your PC, since you have it on your phone. If you are someone who uses your PC for any amount of time, being able to type in quick reminders or check calendar appointments can be a great feature. Cortana is also proactive, and knows your appointments and can remind you that you need to leave. Once again there is nothing new here, since smartphones already have this functionality, but for those of us who spend a lot of time at a PC during a day, it is very nice to have this.
I think one of the untapped potentials of Cortana will evolve over time. Microsoft has been pushing to add Cortana support to iOS and Android, and while you may feel that effort is in vain because they already have their own integrated personal assistants, Cortana will be the link between any of your devices. You can set reminders on your PC but if you are out at the gas station with your Android phone, you’ll get notified. Cortana also supports geo-fencing, so you can tell it to remind you to do something the next time you are at a location, and that will work from the desktop to the phone as well, no matter what phone you use.
The one major issue with Cortana at the moment is just how limited it’s deployment is. Microsoft is tuning Cortana to each region where Windows is available, and as such it is only available in seven countries right now, with the U.S., UK, China, France, Italy, Germany and Spain being available at launch. More countries will be coming online in the next couple of months. By tuning the experience to each location, they can ensure that the experience fits in with the culture which varies so greatly across the globe.
I have only had a small glimpse of Cortana on the desktop, although I have used it quite a bit on my phone, because being from Canada I am on the list of countries waiting. But that small glimpse, as well as the integration of Cortana with the rest of the system, shows that Cortana might be one of the most important additions to Windows in this release.
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tonytroubleshooter - Wednesday, August 26, 2015 - link
they dont care about licensing it, they care about people installing a "OMG free Win 10 upgrade", with Cortanana and privacy settings enabled. Soon as the number of WIn10 installs with express settings goes up, so will the money stacks from advertisers to MS. for shame MS, for shame... shadowing Google like a biznitch....BobSwi - Tuesday, August 25, 2015 - link
Sticking with 7, and likely next upgrade will be linux with windows in a VM. Virtual box has let me ttest drive so many OS's, Mint, Debian, Slackware.n0b0dykn0ws - Tuesday, August 25, 2015 - link
I know I'll be in the minority, but this OS suffers from the same flaw that Windows 8(.1) did. It offers little reason to upgrade and takes away things that I use.I still use Windows Media Center because it is the most polished modern DVR platform for Windows. Either products were dumped years ago and are only available as their last release, or there are modern platforms that you have to spend vast amounts of time configuring and when it finally does work you have to pray that the next release doesn't break it.
There is a sliver of hope with SiliconDust's forthcoming DVR software, but until it is in final release and I can finally know the final technical details of the platform I am forced to continue using Windows 8.1 on all three of my desktops.
There just isn't enough 'new' in Windows 10 to make it worthwhile jumping ship. Especially given that features such as Cortana I am no longer interested in using.
vLsL2VnDmWjoTByaVLxb - Tuesday, August 25, 2015 - link
One troubling aspect of this ecosystem is I've had trouble using my Microsoft account, including Onedrive, too many times. What is happening right now and for the past few weeks on my work system is a continual prompt to provide credentials when I save documents. It makes getting work done nearly impossible, and I'm considering abandoning this setup I've had for quite some time.Previously I've had issues with syncing and adding extra space to my Onedrive account. All in all it's the heart of much of this ecosystem and I've lost trust in it, and therefore, much of my trust of Windows in general. It's my data, why must you make me struggle to access it?
basroil - Tuesday, August 25, 2015 - link
"Accessing all apps is different than Windows 7 because there are no folders on the Start Menu. Instead there is just an alphabetical list of all apps that you can scroll through."There ARE folders in Windows 10 start menu/screen, I have ~10 of them ranging from Blender to Visual Studio 2015!
Brett Howse - Tuesday, August 25, 2015 - link
I updated the text. Sorry about that I actually was meaning hierarchical folders like Programs->Accessories->System Tools but I see that what I said was not correct. Thanks for pointing it out!AlexIsAlex - Tuesday, August 25, 2015 - link
It's a shame, I really wanted to like Windows 10, and had it pegged as an upgrade from 7. It's certainly an improvement over 8, but I'm just not seeing anything convincing over 7 for a desktop. For the desktop use case (no touch, no wifi, no apps - full applications only please) where I will not accept an MS Account login (no Hello, no Store, no Cortana, no OneDrive), that leaves precious little. Slightly faster file copies and a nicer task manager, it seems.Then there's the new visual look/design language, which I can't say I really like, personally (this is supposed to be client side software, not a website), and the inconsistent UI between Metro and Desktop - seriously, just try right clicking in the start menu (Metro) compared to the task bar (Desktop).
There's Edge I suppose. Better than IE, granted. Not as good as Firefox.
Oh well. I guess we'll all have to migrate eventually. But until forced, I'm sticking with 7.
Victor84 - Tuesday, August 25, 2015 - link
Sums it up pretty well, could not agree more.trparky - Tuesday, August 25, 2015 - link
Firefox? You bring that piece of crap up? That thing will gladly eat through your RAM like a pig. I can't stand Firefox anymore and that goes for anything built on Firefox. The engine itself is garbage. Or, and did you hear that Mozilla will be abandoning XUL and thus all existing extensions will be obsolete?You don't need to tie your Microsoft Live Account to your Windows login if you don't want to. All you need is a Microsoft Live Account and Windows 10 will allow you to individually sign into the Store, OneDrive, etc.
You probably have a Google Account. Same thing, different company.
Oxford Guy - Tuesday, August 25, 2015 - link
Chrome has been linked to issues with memory leakage. I think Chrome is highly overrated.