Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft Bringing Cortana To iOS, Android
An anonymous reader writes: While many big tech companies have their own personal assistant software these days, few of them are available on a broad variety of devices. Microsoft has now announced that it's becoming one of those few: Cortana will be available for iOS and Android devices later this year. It's part of an initiative by the company to ensure Windows 10 plays well with all sorts of devices, even phones made by the other major manufacturers. Microsoft said, "Regardless of the operating systems you choose across your devices – everything important to you should roam across the products you already own – including your phone." This led them to develop a "Phone Companion app," built into Windows 10, that's designed to help sync a user's PC with his phone.
With the amount of potential information mining that could be done with these apps, I'm surprised they aren't all cross-platform.
"Everything important to you should roam across the products you already own"; by which we mean "please, do us the favor of selecting the consumer data most worth collecting about you and sending it to us".
That sounds good. Strange enough, my Android phone is not capable of syncing to my PC, even though my Palm could do it ten years earlier. My guess is that Google engineers just can't do this --- just kidding.
Anyway, syncing == good. Now how can I do it with Linux?
Is Apple really going to allow Cortana on iOS? I thought they were totally not cool with app competition.
be sure and put her on permanent hold and then we'll say I was being romantic and shit. Also, erase all my browser history and my login to FarmerMadison.com where I routinely cheat on my cow with someone else's cow. After that you can just erase yourself, Cortuna. I already have talky-G-searchy and if I get sick of her I have Siri, so donotwant you.
This is the NSA, we're gonna geet U h@x0r5! Also, what is a h@x0r5?
If the different agents were all cross platform and had to compete on merit instead of device lock-in, and you can pick the one you like the best, how is this bad? At least if it's an app you can not use it at all, or try it out and uninstall it if it sucks.
Modern app appers use apps to app other apps!
Apps!
Will Microsoft be extorting revenue from Microsoft for the patented Microsoft technology in Microsoft Android?
These "personal assistants" are little more than gimmicks. They are good for a few laughs, but when really wanting to get something solved, you just do it yourself by means of means which, albeit more traditional, tend to be faster and more thorough. Other than this, I don't want to have any Microsoft trash in my phone, much less when it is delivered with a name fit for a cheap stripper.
All I want to know is does Cortana give better advice than Siri for hiding dead bodies?
http://mashable.com/2014/08/13...
Can't we have our own free Siri, Cortana or Google Now? Is there already a F/OSS alternative?
Actually, we could have different "skins" like Maria (Spanish accent), Fifi (French), Tanya (Russian), etc. (think Jar-Jar).
It's a great way to do technical evangelism:
-- Fifi, please find me a word document converter?
-- Why not install Libreoffice, mon cheri? (*)
(*) I know it has an accent but /. removes accents at random.
I'm surprised they aren't all cross-platform.
Well, Apple is still mostly a company selling hardware. So keeping Siri restricted to iOS makes sense, it's an extra bullet-point to sell of their hardware (from which their profit).
Opening Siri to Android would reduce the perceived advantage of iDevices and bring less money to Apple.
Microsoft - in the phone arena at least - is currently selling *OS* and *software*. Keeping Cortana restricted to Windows would have been a selling point for Windows (and thus selling more license to Windows-based phone makers)... but Windows has completely and utterly failed to attract any significant interest.
iOS and Android are the 2 big player, and there's little room for a 3rd one(*), specially given the network effect.They have no point in actually keeping Cortana restricted, Windows on phone is a lost cause anyway.
So having failed that, of course Microsoft will move to the next possibility: indeed, there's massive value in mining information. Siri and Cortana are running locally, they are just thin clients that record vocal commands and send them to data center for interpretation.
There's a high potential to monetize that, so Microsoft has a strong incentive to push it to as many devices as possible.
---
(*) a 3rd *incompatible* one which uses yet another different standard for apps.
There are plenty of small niches for different OSes (mainly full blown Linux) that still retain compatibility with Android apps.
e.g: Black Berry, Sailfish OS, etc.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
Closing the barn door once the horse has bolted.
No, she's American.
http://www.boobpedia.com/boobs...
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law
Umm... +5 for effort maybe?
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
See subject: To stockholders. Losing money != living up to it by *ANY* stretch of the imagination & that is WHAT THEY CLAIM TO DO, as CEO's for Pete's sake & they don't...
After all - Why do you THINK Ballmer & Sinofsky took off? See subject - again, losing MONEY is *not* doing that.
Of course, I sincerely feel Windows & MS is being "gentrified" (sort of) ON PURPOSE, like in land deals, which DO take time!
(Nuch as screwing Windows up on the surface with the DUMB interface & more I outlined here beneath the surface, driving away REGULAR users used to a certain interface for decades AND even "techie geeks" like myself, due to what's outlined here on hosts files -> http://linux.slashdot.org/comm... also... )
* Get the stock price to DROP, people drop that stock, & corporate "buybacks" of their OWN stock is the "in thing" now, fueling FAKE 'growth', fool... so, that all said & aside??
THEY'RE JUST SETTING IT UP TO BUY IT UP CHEAP & THEN TURN AROUND, RELEASE A SOLID VERSION OF WINDOWS (minus fuckups) & CLEAN UP LARGE, for themselves... bigtime.
Anyone with 1/2 a brain that's seen it in real estate for example, has seen it before & KNOW what's really going on... THAT 'gentrification' is it.
APK
P.S.=> Get real man... I hate to say it, but if MS keeps this up? Once my Win7 64-bit support goes away, unless they patch it perfectly by then? I'll be on Linux or MacOS X like "white on rice" due to the above - & yes, that's WHAT IS GOING ON, no questions asked (that, or they're stupid as hell, take your pick, driving away users)... apk
You could, presumably, start with Jasper... graft on a bunch of Python for DBpedia, and then a heads-up interface for your powered exoskeleton.