What can cortana do windows 10

Cortana is easily one of the coolest new features of Windows 10. You’re probably already familiar with personal assistants like Google Now and Siri, but now you have one built right into your desktop! Here’s how to get information, manage your schedule, and even run a few Google commands.

Using Cortana: Voice vs. Typing

There are two ways to use Cortana: you can use voice commands, or you can type out your commands in the Start Menu. If you choose the former, you may want to enable the “Hey Cortana” feature. With this on, you can say “Hey Cortana” out loud to trigger voice commands without pressing a button. Here’s how:

1. Search for “Cortana settings” in your Start Menu.
2. Enable the toggle under “Hey Cortana.”
3. (Optional) Under “Respond best”, you can choose “to me” to tailor Cortana to your voice. You’ll need to perform a couple quick exercises to teach Cortana your voice. Otherwise, Cortana will work for anyone.

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While Cortana works with voice commands, they’re not strictly necessary. All of the commands we’ll list here can be typed in as well. Of course, typing whole sentences is pretty inefficient. Fortunately, Cortana’s also pretty good at figuring out what you mean, so you can be a little flexible with the phrasing. For example “What’s on my schedule today?” “What do I have going on today?” and “my schedule today” all perform the same function, so try out different variations and see what works for you!

Get Your Information When You Need It

Any good personal assistant should be able to give you the information you need when you need it. Cortana can offer a lot of personalized information based on what it knows about you. These commands can offer information about your schedule, the weather,

Much of this is dependent on how many of Microsoft’s services you use. So if, for example, you don’t use Microsoft’s Calendar app, you may not be able to get information about your schedule. In some cases, you can sync Google services to fill in the gaps, as well. We’ll mark what services these commands depend on where appropriate:

• What’s the weather like? If you have location services enabled, you can ask this question to find out what the weather is like in your area. Alternatively, you can ask about the weather in a specific area to get the same information for any area.
• What’s on my schedule? If you have any events scheduled, you can ask Cortana what’s coming up today, tomorrow, next week, or any other time frame. You can also ask natural questions like “What do I have going on this weekend?” to find out what’s on your calendar. This relies on Outlook or the built-in Calendar app. You can sync your Google Calendar, though you won’t be able to add new events.
• What’s the status of my flight? If Microsoft knows about any flights you have coming up (typically by email via Outlook), you can ask about “my flight” to get up-to-date information about it. Alternatively, you can ask about a flight by number, if you know it. Syncing Gmail with the built-in Mail app or Outlook may help Cortana pick up on some of this info.
• How long will it take me to get to [place]? If you have location services enabled, you can ask about travel time to a particular place to get an estimate of how long it will take to get there.
• Show me directions to [place]. Similarly, you can use Cortana to find directions to a place if you know the name or address. This will open in Bing Maps. At the moment, there doesn’t seem to be a way to open it in an alternative app. Technically, you can use any Maps app available on the Windows Store, but none of the typical established mapping companies seem to have a worthwhile option in the Store yet.
• Show me my notes. If you’re using OneNote, you can use this command to find your notes. You can also filter it by date range. For example “Show me my notes from January 2015” to filter the results.

When you’re busy working on things, it’s handy to be able to just type or say a command and get an answer about what’s going on in your life. The only downside is that most of this requires using Microsoft services (or at least syncing with them), but if you spend a lot of time at your desktop, it may very well be worth it.

Manage Your Time With Reminders, Events, and Alarms

If your personal assistant only knows how to read back stuff you already told it, that assistant probably wouldn’t be very useful. Fortunately, Cortana can actually take a more active approach to managing your time and productivity. While managing your calendar events requires using one of Microsoft’s services, alarms and reminders work directly in Windows 10 itself, no special services required.

• Create an appointment. If you use Microsoft’s calendar services, you can create or modify appointments with a voice command. You can simply say “Create an appointment” to type the information manually, or say the details out loud (for example: “Create a meeting tomorrow at 2PM”).
• Move my appointment. You can also modify existing events with commands like “Move my 2PM meeting tomorrow to 3PM.” Cortana can generally recognize events on your calendar by name, so you can say something like “Move Bad Movie Night to 8PM.”
• Set a reminder. Cortana can set reminders like “Remind me to take my lunch on time for once at noon.” If you happen to be using a Windows Phone (yes, you’re finally getting your own shout out, Phone users), you can set reminders to trigger when you reach a certain place, or when a particular contact calls you.
• Show me my reminders. This command will show you all of the reminders you currently have coming up. You can also click on the menu button and select “History” to see the reminders you’ve already completed.
• Set an alarm. Just like reminders, you can set alarms for certain times in the day. You can set these to occur only once, or recur on a regular basis.
• Show me my alarms. You can ask Cortana to show you a list of all the alarms you have active. This will open the new Alarms & Clock app, where you can modify or delete all your existing alarms.

Even if you don’t want to use Microsoft services, the reminders and alarms in Windows 10 make it super easy to stay on top of the things you need to do without having to launch a bunch of separate apps. Your reminders will pop up in your notification tray, and alarms will ring right when you need them.

Find Basic Information Directly in the Start Menu

Not every question you have needs a whole dang browser tab. Sometimes you have a simple question that needs a simple answer. While you’re probably used to getting some of these answers from your phone, Cortana can now answer a lot of them directly in the Start Menu. For example:

• How tall is Jeff Goldblum? Cortana can give you basic information on notable public figures like height, weight, age, marital status and so on.
• Define “superfluous.” Cortana can quickly give you the definition of a word so you don’t look like an idiot in that internet argument.
• When is Labor Day? Because not only are you going to get Labor Day and Memorial Day mixed up, now everyone on Facebook will make fun of you for it. Better ask Cortana first.
• How long is Age of Ultron? Cortana can quickly tell you the runtime of a movie. Cortana can not, however, give you the extended edition that movie so badly needed.
• Who is the CEO of Microsoft? Cortana can quickly identify a lot of important people. Though, much like the typical American, she didn’t seem to handle questions about local government representatives very well.
• What’s the theme song to Firefly? Cortana can get this right. You should, too.
• What is one US dollar in Japanese yen? If you’re traveling, researching a vacation, or on the run from the FBI, Cortana can let you know how much your money is worth in other currencies.
• What time is it in California? If your boss also doesn’t live in the same time zone as you do, this can be a life saver.

All of these (and plenty more) will typically pull up results directly in the Start Menu. This is a handy way to get a quick answer without having to leave what you’re doing. Of course, if Cortana doesn’t happen to know an answer, you’ll be kicked out to the browser where she’ll search Bing for an answer, so if your goal is to avoid opening new tabs, this might work best with questions you know she can answer.

Search Online with Bing Results

Yes, many of us prefer Google, and we have a special trick for you (us) folks in a bit. However, Microsoft has a lot of features that Cortana can do with the help of Bing that are pretty cool. Here are some of the questions Bing can answer when you get kicked out to the web search results:

• Show me Indian restaurants nearby. Curiously (and thankfully), this doesn’t go the Maps application, but instead searches for restaurants on Bing in your browser.
• Show me pictures of Mila Kunis. You can use Cortana to run a Bing image search for just about anything. But mostly Mila Kunis.
• Show me a video of how to deseed pomegranates. Actually, if you need a video for deseeding pomegranates, we’ve got you covered. For all other videos, Bing can take care of it.
• When is the next baseball game? To be totally honest, it took me about four tries to find a sports-related voice command that worked because I don’t know anything about sports. I did eventually confirm that Bing can handle them.
• What’s the population of the United States? I’m pretty sure I’ve looked this up more times than is reasonable.

In general, you can use Cortana to search the web for just about anything. Out of the box, Cortana uses Bing for your web results, so the answers are a bit limited. However, there are still plenty of answers you can get from Bing even without changing search engines.

Use (Some) Google Voice Commands With a Chrome Extension

Let’s be real for a second: Google has had a massive head start in voice commands over Microsoft. They’re really good at it, too. Naturally, many of us have a preference for Google over Bing. If you do too, or just have a lot more information tied to your Google account, you can use the previously mentioned Bing2Google extension to use Cortana to launch Google commands.

Bing2Google works by redirecting your Bing searches to Google once they load in the browser. This means any command that gets bumped to the browser (including everything in the last section) can technically be performed as a Google command instead. You can use this to perform regular Google searches, commands that Microsoft doesn’t support, or just use Google as an alternative to the normal Bing commands. In addition to the ones in the previous section, here are a few commands we’ve found that work with Google but not Bing:

• Where are my packages? This will show a list of all the packages that you’ve received emails about in Gmail. It cannot tell you why your package went from Texas to Canada on its way to Oklahoma.
• When does Battle and Brew close? You can ask Google when a particular store or restaurant will close and get a direct answer.
• What is tonsillitis? Earlier this year, Google started getting real doctors to provide information for its Knowledge Graph that you can pull up with simple searches.
• What’s in a Tom Collins? Google’s a pretty good bartender (aside from making you mix drinks yourself). A quick search can get you recipes for a number of cocktails.

Google alone has a ton of its own commands, so we won’t re-list every single one of them, but you get the idea. Even if you’re not a fan of Bing, this extension makes it possible to use Cortana for all the commands she can support, and use Google for everything else. It’s the best of both worlds. As long as you use Chrome, of course. There’s always a catch.

В последнее время всё более популярны интеллектуальные ассистенты. Это программы управления ПО, которые предназначены для упрощения простых операций пользователей. Одной из наиболее известных из них является Cortana – разработка Microsoft. Программа доступна как на смартфонах, так и на персональных компьютерах.

ВАЖНО. Помощник Кортана доступен в отдельных странах/регионах и работает не на всех языках. Посетите веб-сайт Microsoft, чтобы проверить регионы и языки, на которых доступен помощник.

Использование Cortana в Windows.

Что такое Кортана (Cortana) в Windows 10

Личный голосовой помощник Cortana упрощает управление персональными данными, настройками и выполняет множество различных задач. Чтобы иметь возможность использовать помощника, ваш компьютер должен иметь активное подключение к Интернету. К сожалению, программа доступна только в некоторых странах. Многие задумываются, когда же мы, наконец, сможем использовать помощника Microsoft на нашем родном языке. К сожалению, всё указывает на то, что это вряд ли произойдёт в ближайшем будущем. Связано это с тем, что он интегрируется с браузером Bing, который не только не слишком распространён, но в нашей стране и не предлагает полной функциональности. Пока эта ситуация не изменится, мы не сможем пользоваться русской версией Кортаны. Однако, внеся некоторые изменения в систему, можно запустить свою оригинальную английскую версию в Windows 10.

Обзор функций Кортана

Кортана – одна из самых заметных новых функций Windows 10. Виртуальный помощник Microsoft делает прыжок с Windows Phone на рабочий стол, и вы можете сделать с ним довольно многое. Это не просто голосовой ассистент – вы также можете вводить команды и задавать вопросы. Откройте Cortana, чтобы увидеть информацию, которая, как вам кажется, вам интересна. Cortana предоставляет много пассивной информации, даже уведомляя вас, когда вам нужно уйти, чтобы не пропустить встречу.

Настроить напоминания по времени, месту и людям

Cortana имеет мощную встроенную функцию напоминания, но вы можете сделать больше, чем просто получать напоминание в определённое время. Используйте значок напоминаний или скажите «Напомнить мне», чтобы начать. Вы можете создать напоминание, и Cortana напомнит вам о чём-то в установленное время, когда вы попадаете в определённое место или когда разговариваете с конкретным человеком. Вы также можете просто сказать что-то вроде «Напомни мне, чтобы я взял таблетку в 8 вечера» или «Напомни мне купить молоко, когда я доберусь до (название магазина)», чтобы мгновенно создать напоминание.

Использование простого языка для поиска

Cortana поддерживает поиск на естественном языке файлов на вашем компьютере. Например, вы можете попросить Cortana «найти фотографии с августа» или «найти документы о Windows», чтобы найти фотографии с августа или файлы документов, связанные с Windows. Это встроенная функция поиска Windows, но с более естественными языковыми возможностями. Она гораздо проще в использовании, чем старые поисковые операторы.

Определить песню

Как и Siri, Google Now и специальные приложения, такие как Shazam, Cortana может слушать песню, которая играет рядом с вами, и идентифицировать её. Скажите «Что это за песня?», и Cortana будет использовать ваш микрофон для прослушивания музыки и сравнения её с конкретной песней. Функция хорошо работает с записью, но необязательно будет работать с живой музыкой.

Поиск в Интернете с помощью Google (или другой поисковой системы) вместо Bing

Cortana работает на поисковике Bing. Когда вы спросите Cortana о чём-то, что она не знает, откроется ваш веб-браузер по умолчанию и выполнится поиск в Bing. Cortana уважает ваш браузер по умолчанию – даже если это Chrome или Firefox, но не будет уважать вашу поисковую систему по умолчанию и всегда будет использовать Bing. Вы можете заставить Cortana использовать Google или другую поисковую систему, например, DuckDuckGo или Yahoo, с расширением Chrometana для Google Chrome. Когда Cortana направляет Google Chrome на страницу результатов поиска Bing, Chrometana автоматически перенаправляет этот поиск в Google или вашу поисковую систему по выбору, заставляя помощника выполнять поиски Google. Это работает, только если вы используете Chrome в качестве своего веб-браузера по умолчанию.

Выполнение вычислений и конвертация

Ассистент также может выполнять быстрые вычисления. Помните, что вы также можете ввести запрос в поле поиска Cortana – вам не нужно долго говорить. Вы можете либо попросить провести математический расчёт, такой как «324234*34234», либо ввести конвертацию единиц, например, «55 uk фунтов в usd». Это работает как с валютами, так и с другими типами единиц.

Отслеживать полёты и посылки

Помощник может отслеживать рейсы, используя их номера, и посылки, используя их номера для отслеживания. Просто введите номер рейса или номер для отслеживания посылок в поле поиска – вы можете просто скопировать и вставить его для просмотра текущего состояния.

Найти факты

Для быстрого ответа на общие вопросы Кортана использует Bing. Это похоже на Google Knowledge Graph. Например, вы можете задать такие вопросы, как «Какое самое высокое здание в мире?» Или «Кто является президентом Соединенных Штатов?», чтобы получить немедленный ответ.

Проверить погоду

Используйте Кортану для быстрой проверки погоды в разных местах. «Погода» покажет вам погоду в вашем текущем местоположении, а «Погода в (местоположении)» покажет вам погоду в другом городе.

Получить направление

Кортана также может отвечать указаниями направления или проложить маршрут. Попросите «указать (местоположение)», и Cortana откроет включённое приложение «Карты Windows 10» с указаниями по вашему выбору.

Установка аварийных сигналов

Она также поддерживает сигналы тревоги, а не только напоминания. Попросите Cortana «установить будильник на (время)», и она создаст для вас сигнал тревоги. Тревога здесь сохраняется в приложении Alarms & Clock, где вы можете управлять своими сигналами.

Отправить электронное письмо

Кортана может отправлять электронные письма с помощью встроенного приложения Mail и учётных записей, которые вы там настроили. Просто скажите «отправить электронную почту», чтобы начать, или что-то более конкретное, например, «Отправить письмо (имя контакта)», если этот человек есть в ваших контактах.

Создание событий календаря

Кортана также может создавать события календаря. Просто скажите что-то вроде «Добавь в календарь встречу в четверг на 2 часа дня», и ассистент автоматически заполнит предоставленную вами информацию.

Просто пообщаться

Как и Сири, Кортана может «болтать» о вещах и отвечать на глупые вопросы быстрыми ответами. Спросите Кортану о чём-то или даже дайте инструкцию типа «Расскажи мне историю», «Расскажи мне анекдот», «Спой мне песню» или «Удивите меня!».

Получить список команд / Справка

Попросите «помочь», и вы увидите список вещей, которые вы можете сделать. Например, Cortana может воспроизводить музыку, просматривать спортивные результаты и предоставлять прогнозы, а также предлагать словарные определения и переводы для слов. Microsoft, скорее всего, в бесплатных обновлениях в будущем добавит новые функции в Cortana и улучшит существующие.

Как включить или запустить Cortana (Кортана)

Чтобы пользоваться преимуществами Cortana в России, необходимо изменить несколько вариантов системы, в первую очередь локализацию и язык:

• первое, что нам нужно сделать, это перейти в «Настройки», щёлкнув значок «шестерёнки» в меню «Пуск»;

• затем выберите элемент «Время и язык» – «Регион и язык»;
• нажмите «Добавить язык», выберите «Английский» – «Английский» (США).

• как только закончите предыдущий шаг, вернитесь к региону и языку, на котором выделите английский (Соединённые Штаты), а затем нажмите «Параметры»;

• уже находясь в параметрах, нажмите кнопку «Загрузить» рядом с «Речь», загрузка рукописного ввода не требуется;
• по завершении этого процесса снова вернитесь в «Регион и язык», нажмите «Английский» (США) и установите его как язык по умолчанию.

Перезагрузите компьютер. Следующий шаг, который поможет вам включить Cortana в Windows 10 – щёлкнуть значок увеличительного стекла на панели задач, затем значок шестеренки. В верхней части появившегося окна находится выпадающий список, из которого выберите английский (США) и подтвердите выбор. Чтобы настроить более расширенные параметры, щёлкните по значку ассистента (который раньше заменяло увеличительное стекло), а затем нажмите на значок шестерёнки. Вероятно, самой желанной функцией Кортаны является определение фразы «Hey, Cortana». Чтобы активировать её, переместите ползунок Let Cortana respond to «Hey Cortana» в положение «On».

Следует помнить, что Кортана использует механизмы «глубокого обучения», а это означает, что чем чаще мы её запускаем, тем эффективнее она будет работать. Это также относится к пониманию акцента пользователя и тому, как он произносит слова. Кроме того, по очевидным причинам, некоторые службы и мероприятия не будут доступны за пределами Соединённых Штатов.

Как отключить Cortana в Windows

Процедура отключения Cortana в Windows 10 гораздо проще, чем её полное удаление:

• нажмите кнопку «Пуск»;
• в поле поиска введите «Cortana» и запустите программу;
• перейдите к «Меню» – «Notebook» – «Настройки»;
• в открывшемся окне перетащите ползунок в значение «Выключено».

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Cortana on Windows 10 (Home edition version 21H1)
Developer(s)	Microsoft
Initial release	April 2, 2014; 8 years ago[1]
Stable release(s) [±]
Android 3.3.3.2753-enus-release / November 29, 2019; 3 years ago[2] iOS 3.3.3 / November 30, 2019; 3 years ago[3]
Preview release(s) [±]
Android 3.3.3.2753 / November 29, 2019; 3 years ago[4]
Operating system	Windows, iOS, Android, Xbox OS
Platform	Windows 11 Windows 10 Windows 10 Mobile Windows Phone 8.1[5] Harman Kardon Invoke Microsoft Band 2 Microsoft Band Surface Headphones Skype[6] Cyanogen OS Windows Mixed Reality Amazon Alexa[7]
Available in	English French Chinese (Mandarin) German Spanish Italian Japanese Brazilian Portuguese
Type	Intelligent personal assistant
License	Proprietary
Website	www.microsoft.com/en-us/cortana

Cortana is a virtual assistant developed by Microsoft that uses the Bing search engine to perform tasks such as setting reminders and answering questions for the user.

Cortana is currently available in English, Portuguese, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Chinese, and Japanese language editions, depending on the software platform and region in which it is used.^[8]

Microsoft began reducing the prevalence of Cortana and converting it from an assistant into different software integrations in 2019.^[9] It was split from the Windows 10 search bar in April 2019.^[10] In January 2020, the Cortana mobile app was removed from certain markets,^[11][12] and on March 31, 2021, the Cortana mobile app was shut down globally.^[13]

History[edit]

Cortana was demonstrated for the first time at the Microsoft Build developer conference in San Francisco in April 2014.^[1] It was launched as a key ingredient of Microsoft’s planned «makeover» of future operating systems for Windows Phone and Windows.^[5]

It is named after Cortana,^[14] a synthetic intelligence character in Microsoft’s Halo video game franchise originating in Bungie folklore,^[15] with Jen Taylor, the character’s voice actress, returning to voice the personal assistant’s US-specific version.^[16]

Development[edit]

The development of Cortana started in 2009 in the Microsoft Speech products team with general manager Zig Serafin and Chief Scientist Larry Heck. Heck and Serafin established the vision, mission, and long-range plan for Microsoft’s digital personal assistant and they built a team with the expertise to create the initial prototypes for Cortana.^[17] Some of the key researchers in these early efforts included Microsoft Research researchers Dilek Hakkani-Tür, Gokhan Tur, Andreas Stolcke, and Malcolm Slaney, research software developer Madhu Chinthakunta, and user experience designer Lisa Stifelman. To develop the Cortana digital assistant, the team interviewed human personal assistants. The interviews inspired a number of unique features in Cortana, including the assistant’s «notebook» feature. Originally, Cortana was meant to be only a codename, but a petition on Windows Phone’s UserVoice site proved to be popular and made the codename official.^[18][19]

Expansion to other platforms[edit]

In January 2015, Microsoft announced the availability of Cortana for Windows 10 desktops and mobile devices as part of merging Windows Phone into the operating system at large.

On May 26, 2015, Microsoft announced that Cortana would also be available on other mobile platforms. An Android release was set for July 2015, but the Android APK file containing Cortana was leaked ahead of its release. It was officially released, along with an iOS version, in December 2015.^[20]

During E3 2015, Microsoft announced that Cortana would come to the Xbox One as part of a universally designed Windows 10 update for the console.^[21]

New focus[edit]

In 2017, Microsoft partnered with Amazon to integrate Echo and Cortana with each other, allowing users of each smart assistant to summon the other via a command.^[22] This feature preview was released in August 2018. Windows 10 users can just say «Hey Cortana, open Alexa» and Echo users can say «Alexa, open Cortana» to summon the other assistant.^[23]

In January 2019, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella stated that he no longer sees Cortana as a direct competitor against Alexa and Siri.^[24]

Decreasing focus on Cortana[edit]

On July 24, 2020, Cortana was removed from the Xbox dashboard as part of a redesign,^[25] then on January 31, 2021, Microsoft removed the Cortana mobile application in certain markets (including UK, Australia, Germany, Mexico, China, Spain, Canada, and India).^[11][12]

On March 31, 2021, Microsoft shut down the Cortana apps entirely for iOS and Android and removed them from corresponding app stores. To access previously recorded content, users have to use Cortana on Windows 10 or another specialized Microsoft application.^[13]

Microsoft has also reduced emphasis on Cortana in Windows 11. Cortana is not used during the new device setup process and isn’t pinned to the taskbar by default.^[26][27]

Cortana in other services[edit]

Microsoft has integrated Cortana into numerous products such as Microsoft Edge,^[28] the browser bundled with Windows 10. Microsoft’s Cortana assistant is deeply integrated into its Edge browser. Cortana can find opening hours when on restaurant sites, show retail coupons for websites, or show weather information in the address bar. At the Worldwide Partners Conference 2015 Microsoft demonstrated Cortana integration with products such as GigJam.^[29] Conversely, Microsoft announced in late April 2016 that it would block anything other than Bing and Edge from being used to complete Cortana searches, again raising questions of anti-competitive practices by the company.^[30]

Microsoft’s «Windows in the car» concept includes Cortana. The concept makes it possible for drivers to make restaurant reservations and see places before they go there.^[31]

At Microsoft Build 2016, Microsoft announced plans to integrate Cortana into Skype (Microsoft’s video-conferencing and instant messaging service) as a bot to allow users to order food, book trips, transcribe video messages and make calendar appointments through Cortana in addition to other bots.^[32] As of 2016, Cortana can underline certain words and phrases in Skype conversations that relate to contacts and corporations.^[33] A writer from Engadget has criticised the Cortana integration in Skype for responding only to very specific keywords, feeling as if she was «chatting with a search engine» due to the impersonal way the bots replied to certain words such as «Hello» causing the Bing Music bot to bring up Adele’s song of that name.^[34]

Microsoft also announced at Microsoft Build 2016 that Cortana would be able to cloud-synchronise notifications between Windows 10 Mobile’s and Windows 10’s Action Center,^[35][36] as well as notifications from Android devices.^[37][38]

In December 2016, Microsoft announced^[39] the preview of Calendar.help, a service that enabled people to delegate the scheduling of meetings to Cortana. Users interact with Cortana by including her in email conversations. Cortana would then check people’s availability in Outlook Calendar or Google Calendar, and work with others Cc’d on the email to schedule the meeting. The service relied on automation and human-based computation.^[40][41]

In May 2017, Microsoft in collaboration with Harman Kardon announced INVOKE, a voice-activated speaker featuring Cortana. The premium speaker has a cylindrical design and offers 360 degree sound, the ability to make and receive calls with Skype, and all of the other features currently available with Cortana.^[42]

Functionality[edit]

Cortana can set reminders, recognize natural voice without the requirement for keyboard input, and answer questions using information from the Bing search engine (For example, current weather and traffic conditions, sports scores, biographies).^[43][44][45] Searches using Windows 10 are made only with the Microsoft Bing search engine, and all links will open with Microsoft Edge,^[46] except when a screen reader such as Narrator is being used, where the links will open in Internet Explorer. Windows Phone 8.1’s universal Bing SmartSearch features are incorporated into Cortana, which replaces the previous Bing Search app, which was activated when a user presses the «Search» button on their device.^[47] Cortana includes a music recognition service.^[48] Cortana can simulate rolling dice and flipping a coin.^[49] Cortana’s «Concert Watch» monitors Bing searches to determine the bands or musicians that interest the user.^[50] It integrates with the Microsoft Band watch band for Windows Phone devices if connected via Bluetooth,^[51][52] it can make reminders and phone notifications.^[53]

Since the Lumia Denim mobile phone series, launched in October 2014, active listening was added to Cortana enabling it to be invoked with the phrase: «Hey Cortana». It can then be controlled as usual.^[54] Some devices from the United Kingdom by O2 received the Lumia Denim update without the feature, but this was later clarified as a bug and Microsoft has since fixed it.^[55]

Cortana integrates with services such as Foursquare to provide restaurant and local attraction recommendations and LIFX to control smart light bulbs.^[56][57][58]

Notebook[edit]

Cortana stores personal information such as interests, location data, reminders, and contacts in the «Notebook». It can draw upon and add to this data to learn a user’s specific patterns and behaviors. Users can view and specify what information is collected to allow some control over privacy, said to be «a level of control that goes beyond comparable assistants».^[59] Users can delete information from the «Notebook».^[60]

Reminders[edit]

Cortana has a built-in system of reminders, which can, for example, be associated with a specific contact; it will then remind the user when in communication with that contact, possibly at a specific time or when the phone is in a specific location.^[61] Originally, these reminders were specific to the device Cortana was installed on but starting on February 12, 2015, Cortana synchronizes reminders across devices.^[62]

Design[edit]

Most versions of Cortana take the form of two nested circles,^[63] which are animated to indicate activities such as searching or talking. The main color scheme includes a black or white background and shades of blue for the respective circles.^[64]

Phone notification syncing[edit]

Cortana on Windows mobile and Android is capable of capturing device notifications and sending them to a Windows 10 device. This allows a computer user to view notifications from their phone in the Windows 10 Action Center. The feature was announced in early 2016 and released later in the year.^[65]

Miscellaneous[edit]

Cortana has a «do-not-disturb» mode in which users can specify «quiet hours», as was available for Windows Phone 8.1 users.^[66] Users can change the settings so that Cortana calls users by their names or nicknames.^[60] It also has a library of «Easter Eggs», pre-determined remarks.^[67][68]

When asked for a prediction, Cortana correctly predicted the winners of the first 14 matches of the football 2014 FIFA World Cup knockout stage, including the semi-finals, before it incorrectly picked Brazil over the Netherlands in the third place play-off match; this streak topped Paul the Octopus who correctly predicted all 7 of Germany’s 2010 FIFA World Cup matches as well as the Final.^{[69][70][71][72]} Cortana can forecast results in various other sports such as the NBA, the NFL,^[73] the Super Bowl,^[74] the ICC Cricket World Cup^[75] and various European football leagues. Cortana can solve mathematical equations, convert units of measurement, and determine the exchange rates between currencies including Bitcoin.^[76]

Integrations[edit]

Cortana can integrate with third-party apps on Windows 10 or directly through the service. Starting in late 2016, Cortana integrated with Microsoft’s Wunderlist service, allowing Cortana to add and act on reminders.^[77]

At Microsoft’s Build 2017 conference, Microsoft announced that Cortana would get a consumer third-party skills capability, similar to that in Amazon Alexa.^[78]

On February 16, 2018, Microsoft announced connected home skills were added for ecobee, Honeywell Lyric, Honeywell Total Connect Comfort, LIFX, TP-Link Kasa, and Geeni, as well as support for IFTTT.^[79] At Microsoft’s Ignite 2018 conference, Microsoft announced an Technology Adopters Program that Enterprises could build skills that could be developed and deployed into Azure tenants, accessible by organizational units or security groups.^[80]

Privacy concerns[edit]

Cortana indexes and stores user information. Cortana can be disabled; this will cause Windows search to search Bing as well as the local computer, but that can also be disabled. Turning Cortana off does not in itself delete user data stored on Microsoft’s servers, but it can be deleted by user action.^[81] Microsoft has further been criticized for requests to Bing’s website for a file called «threshold.appcache», which contains Cortana’s information through searches made through the Start Menu even when Cortana is disabled on Windows 10.^[82][83]

As of April 2014, Cortana was disabled for users aged under 13 years.^[84]

Regions and languages[edit]

The British version of Cortana speaks with a British accent and uses British idioms, while the Chinese version, known as Xiao Na, speaks Mandarin Chinese and has an icon featuring a face and two eyes, which is not used in other regions.^[85]

As of 2020 the English version of Cortana on Windows devices is available to all users in the United States (American English), Canada (French/English), Australia, India, and the United Kingdom (British English). Other language versions of Cortana are available in France (French), China (Simplified Chinese), Japan (Japanese), Germany (German), Italy (Italian), Brazil (Portuguese), Mexico, and Spain (Spanish). Cortana listens generally to the hot word «Hey Cortana» in addition to certain languages’ customized versions, such as «Hola Cortana» in Spanish.^[86]

The English United Kingdom localised version of Cortana is voiced by voice actress Ginnie Watson,^[87] while the United States localised version is voiced by Jen Taylor. Taylor is the voice actress who voices Cortana, the namesake of the virtual assistant, in the Halo video game series.^[88]

The following table identifies the localized version of Cortana currently available. Except where indicated, this applies to both Windows Mobile and Windows 10 versions of the assistant.

Language[89]	Region[89]	Variant	Status[89]	Platforms
English	United States	American English	Available	Windows, Android, iOS
United Kingdom[90]	British English	Available	Windows, Android[91]
Canada[92]	Canadian English	Available	Windows, Android, iOS[93]
Australia	Australian English	Available	Windows, Android, iOS
India	Indian English	Available[94]	Windows
French	France	French French	Available	Windows, Android, iOS
Canada	Canadian French	Available	Windows, Android, iOS
German	Germany[95]	Standard German	Available	Windows
Italian	Italy	Standard Italian	Available[96]	Windows
Spanish	Spain[97]	Peninsular Spanish	Available	Windows
Mexico	Mexican Spanish	Available	Windows
Traditional Chinese	Taiwan	Taiwanese Mandarin	Not Available
Hong Kong	Cantonese	Not Available
Macau	Cantonese	Not Available
Simplified Chinese	China	Mandarin Chinese	Available	Windows, Android, iOS
Portuguese	Brazil	Brazilian Portuguese	Available	Windows
Japanese	Japan	Standard Japanese	Available	Windows, iOS
Russian	Russia	Standard Russian	Not Available	Windows,[92] iOS[98]

Technology[edit]

The natural language processing capabilities of Cortana are derived from Tellme Networks (bought by Microsoft in 2007) and are coupled with a Semantic search database called Satori.^[99]

While many of Cortana’s U.S. English responses are voiced by Jen Taylor, organic responses require the use of a text-to-speech engine. Microsoft Eva is the name of the text-to-speech voice for organic response in Cortana’s U.S. English.^[100][101]

Updating[edit]

Cortana updates were delivered independently of those to the main Windows Phone OS,^[102] allowing Microsoft to provide new features at a faster pace.^[103] Not all Cortana-related features could be updated in this manner, as some features such as «Hey Cortana» required the Windows Phone update service and the Qualcomm Snapdragon SensorCore Technology.^[104]

See also[edit]

• List of speech recognition software

References[edit]

External links[edit]

• Cortana Compatible Devices
• Cortana Supported Languages
• Cortana for Developers
• «Microsoft’s virtual assistant, Cortana»—The New York Times
• Cortana Analytics Suite Overview
• Dale, Jason (June 26, 2019). «How to Quickly Disable Cortana in Windows 10». Hows.tech. Covers steps to turn off Cortana on Windows 10.