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Windows 10 'Home Hub' Is Microsoft's Response To Amazon Echo and Google Home (mashable.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the arch-enemy dept.

Microsoft's response to the Amazon Echo and Google Home is Home Hub, a software update for Windows 10's Cortana personal assistant that turns any Windows PC into a smart speaker of sorts. Mashable reports: Microsoft's smart digital assistant Cortana can already answer your queries, even if the PC's screen is locked. The Home Hub is tied to Cortana and takes this a few steps further. It would add a special app with features such as calendar appointments, sticky notes and shopping lists. A Home Hub-enabled PC might have a Welcome Screen, a full-screen app that displays all these, like a virtual fridge door. Multiple users (i.e. family members) could use the Home Hub, either by authenticating through Windows Hello or by working in a family-shared account. Cortana would get more powerful on Home Hub; it could, for example, control smart home devices, such as lights and locks. And even though all of this will work on any Windows 10 device -- potentially making the PC the center of your smart home experience -- third-party manufacturers will be able to build devices that work with Home Hub. You can read Windows Central's massive report here. Do note that Home Hub is not official and individual features could change over time. The update is slated for 2017.

4 of 101 comments (clear)

  1. First question ... by fahrbot-bot · · Score: 5, Funny

    Microsoft's smart digital assistant Cortana can already answer your queries, even if the PC's screen is locked.

    Cortana. How do I break into this locked PC?

    --
    It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
  2. Honestly by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    These devices are totally not going to be spying on you 24/7.

    1. Re:Honestly by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Funny

      MS is a company in transition. They also have the cash to develop new ideas even if those ideas never hit the market or the product doesn't produce profitable results.

      "Amazon and Google have put a bit of thought it"
      There are some very intelligent people who work for MS and underestimating them is nonsense. In the beginning IBM grossly underestimated MS and ended losing control of an OS that earned MS billions in sales.

      All the complaints about MS originate from the OS evangelists who ignore the faults in every non-MS software system while elevating every MS bug or process to an extinction level event.

      And do you know why MS is so successful? It's because users do not run OS's they run applications. The vast majority of people have no problem with MS automatically pushing bug and security related fixes to their machine. They have no problem with the anonymous telemetry being sent to MS. I still don't see why people are upset with anonymous telemetry being communicated back to MS. Maybe they don't know what "anonymous" means.

      The top search engines use your online presence in order to feed you customized adds and links. To do this they need to capture and store enough information on me in order to target my user Id. Every corporation and telecommunication firm are in possession of quite a bit of your personal information of one type or another and to me that is a worse than anything MS might be doing.

  3. Great... by Drethon · · Score: 4, Funny

    how do I permanently disable it?