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Microsoft Is Planning To Turn Windows 10 PCs Into Amazon Echo Competitors (theverge.com)

Posted by msmash on from the shape-of-things-to-come dept.

Speaking of Amazon's Echo devices, it appears Microsoft also wants a slice of this nascent market. The Verge's Tom Warren claims that Microsoft has been working on a feature for Windows 10 that would allow it "to better compete with devices like Amazon's Echo." Dubbed HomeHub, the feature is designed to create "a family environment for a PC with shared access to calendars, apps, and even a new welcome screen." He adds: Microsoft is even planning to support smart home devices like Philips' Hue lights, to enable Windows 10 to act as a hub to control and manage smart home hardware. While we've heard about HomeHub before, The Verge has obtained internal concepts of exactly how Microsoft is imagining HomeHub will work. The major addition is a new welcome screen that includes an "always on" digital corkboard to let families use to-do lists, calendars, and notes. The welcome screen is really designed for kitchen PCs and new smaller hardware with screens that will support Cortana voice commands from across the room.

43 of 82 comments (clear)

  1. Nobody asked for this by Frederic54 · · Score: 5, Informative

    as the Amazon Echo with a 7" screen and a 5MP camera, nobody asked for his PC to become a HomeHub spying on you on everything!

    Maybe I'm an old fart but I wil never have something like this in my house, if I want connected thermostat and remote electric blinds, I will do it myself with Arduino.

    --
    "Science will win because it works." - Stephen Hawking
    1. Re:Nobody asked for this by XxtraLarGe · · Score: 2

      Maybe I'm an old fart but I wil never have something like this in my house, if I want connected thermostat and remote electric blinds, I will do it myself with Arduino.

      My boss at my previous job asked me what the "Internet of Things" was. I explained to her "It means your appliances can be connected to the internet, so if you want to preheat your oven or turn up the thermostat before you get home, you can do it from your computer or phone. It also means that a hacker can set your oven to clean and burn your house down, or turn off your thermostat when you're on vacation in Mexico this winter so your pipes freeze." Of course, the second scenario can happen if Nest decided to patch your thermostat software during the winter....

      --
      Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
    2. Re:Nobody asked for this by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      One's stove, among other things, should NEVER be remotely controlled. Accidents can be prevented by not allowing the situation to exist in the first place.

      And Samsung & Wink, despite having talented staff, are marketing beyond our needs. It's unneeded, just a money maker. An exercise in cool 'gadgetry' but really unnecessary.

      I mean can humanity really not do these things manually? Is the suffering just too much to adjust one's thermostat when needed, or pre-heat the oven before dinner?

    3. Re:Nobody asked for this by Rick+Schumann · · Score: 2

      It has nothing to do with being old, it has to do with having a brain that actually works properly, can think critically about things, and not needing everything to be SHINY and toy-like. You buy and use things that serve a useful purpose, and you don't need your hand held every single waking moment because you're perfectly capable of doing things yourself; you can spend the whole extra 5 seconds it takes to sit down at the keyboard to seach for something, you don't need a device of dubious purpose listening to you 24/7/365. Walking over to the thermostat to adjust it is not a hassle for you, you don't need a cloud-connected internet-of-things thermostat that lets you be supremely indolent and send a command to nudge it up by 1 degree over 10,000 miles of cabling. Your TV is just a TV, because there's no real reason for it to be anything other than a TV, it doesn't need to be some hackneyed substitute for a real computer. You may not even have a smartphone (and I applaud you, sir, if that's true) not because you don't 'understand' it, and you know very well how to use a smartphone, but you just don't see the need for something that large, that expensive to purchase, and that expensive to operate every month, when all you really want or need is just a phone that's good at being a phone. You'd probably also rather have your legs cut off than ever set foot into a 'self driving car', because not only do you not trust the technology with your personal safety (which is being rushed to market, what could possibly go wrong?) but you're a good driver, having been taught properly back in the day, so why do you need some half-assed machine to do it for you, while you sit there terrified it's going to get you killed?. These sensibilities are completely lost on the 2 current generations because they've been spoon-fed the idea that they're supposed to need these things, but for some reason they don't stop to think why they need these things -- and there is no real reason, they're just SHINY -- and they make money for corporations that serve little other purpose than to make money.

      I'm no Luddite (I work for tech companies, for effs' sake), neither are you, we're just from a time when you were more practical about your choices, and when people actually valued knowledge and skills, instead of expecting machines to do everything for you, while there's a growing vacuum between your ears because there's not much of anything you do to fill that vacuum. Honestly, I fear for the next generation, that they're not going to really learn or retain much of anything, because there will be more and more SHINY things around to do everything for them (and do them half-assed, more than likely, compared to a skilled human being) so why should they learn anything at all?

  2. Un, seriously, Microsoft? by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 5, Funny

    Time to break out the soldering iron and start burning out the built-in microphones. I don't want my PC waking up every time I take fart.

    1. Re:Un, seriously, Microsoft? by roc97007 · · Score: 1

      I wonder what it would order online under those circumstances.

      --
      Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
    2. Re:Un, seriously, Microsoft? by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 1

      I wonder what it would order online under those circumstances.

      When I apply the soldering iron or take a fart? Probably air freshener.

    3. Re:Un, seriously, Microsoft? by roc97007 · · Score: 1

      The fart part. Air freshener is a good answer. Also enzyme supplements, Beano, fiber supplements, the possibilities are endless!

      --
      Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
    4. Re:Un, seriously, Microsoft? by roc97007 · · Score: 1

      "It sounds like you're having digestive trouble. Can I help?"

      To which the natural response is, "Help with WHAT?"

      --
      Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
    5. Re:Un, seriously, Microsoft? by Oswald+McWeany · · Score: 1

      I wonder what it would order online under those circumstances.

      Most likely a Windows 10 S laptop.

      --
      "That's the way to do it" - Punch
    6. Re:Un, seriously, Microsoft? by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 1

      weird, in my desktop i just need to unplug the 3 dollar microphone

      My Windows laptop with built-in video and microphone. Newer monitors also have built-in video and microphone.

    7. Re:Un, seriously, Microsoft? by Slashdot+Junky · · Score: 1

      Well, a disconnected camera and microphone can't be reconnected by software. A device disabled within the OS can be reenabled by software.

      --
      .
      Landfill Mining Co.
      Managing the (Un)natural Resources of Tomorrow
  3. Thanks for the tip... by roc97007 · · Score: 1

    I just moved my office to a different room. I think I'll decline to plug the microphone back in.

    --
    Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
  4. Conflict.... by beheaderaswp · · Score: 1

    You can't own the road, the car, and patent the role of the driver.

    A walled garden is bad. Microsoft's walled garden not only bad, but will spawn a 1000 lawsuits.

    Microsoft has learned nothing from it's previous history.

    --
    Another consultant who stuck it out.

    "We are the Priests, of the Temples of Syrinx..."
  5. Designed for kitchen PCs by SpankiMonki · · Score: 1

    Do people really have PCs in their kitchens? Huh. I guess I need to get with the times.

    1. Re:Designed for kitchen PCs by freeze128 · · Score: 2

      I once repaired a PC that was used in a bakery. When I opened the case, it was full of flour and bits of dough.

    2. Re:Designed for kitchen PCs by Oswald+McWeany · · Score: 2

      I don't have a PC in the kitchen, and I don't have a PC that is always on. Part of the Alexa selling point is at any time you can say "Alexa Turn On Hall Light".

        If your PC is turned off, and you tell Cortana to do the same, you're going to be stepping on little Timmy's lego bricks barefoot in the dark because Cortana isn't going to hear you.

      --
      "That's the way to do it" - Punch
    3. Re:Designed for kitchen PCs by Waffle+Iron · · Score: 2

      The first "personal computer" ever offered for sale was specifically marketed for kitchens. (Although this particular product didn't move the answer any closer to "yes".)

    4. Re:Designed for kitchen PCs by epyT-R · · Score: 1

      Or gee, I don't know, when I need the hall light on (presumably because I'm entering the hallway), I'll just throw the switch.

    5. Re:Designed for kitchen PCs by No+Longer+an+AC · · Score: 1

      Interesting.

      Without a teletype, a programmer would need to enter software into the Honeywell using the 16 buttons on the front panel, each of which corresponds to a bit. A pressed button represented a one, and un-pushed button signaled a zero. “The chances that you would get a program right doing it one bit at a time like that were so low,” Spicer said. “The first peripheral people bought for [the Honeywell] was a teletype so they could speak to it.”

      But it came with a two-week training class to teach you how to use the thing.

      - meh, don't worry, the compiler will catch any typos....or your recipe will just turn out bad.

  6. Re:Linux can't do this. by roc97007 · · Score: 1

    "It just worked" is an Apple trademark. Expect a visit from their lawyers.

    (It used to be "It just works" before they lost Jobs. Now it's past-tense.)

    --
    Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
  7. What % of /. does Microsoft own? by mykepredko · · Score: 1

    Seriously. This site is turning into "Microsoft news for Nerds".

    --
    Mimetics Inc. Twitter
    1. Re:What % of /. does Microsoft own? by Oswald+McWeany · · Score: 2

      Not really, it's just Microsoft has had a disproportionate number of stupid ideas recently that need mocking.

      --
      "That's the way to do it" - Punch
    2. Re:What % of /. does Microsoft own? by mykepredko · · Score: 1

      LOL. Yeah, that could be it.

      --
      Mimetics Inc. Twitter
    3. Re:What % of /. does Microsoft own? by theurge14 · · Score: 1

      Agreed. I made this comment a few weeks ago.

  8. The ultimate eavesdropping machine by Shompol · · Score: 2

    an "always on" ... voice commands from across the room.

    The KGB's wet dream since 1930s

    1. Re:The ultimate eavesdropping machine by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      The telescreen, as it turns out, won't necessarily be attached to the wall. However it will still have the capability to watch you, and you will not be able to turn it off.

  9. Re:More and more useless features by Alain+Williams · · Score: 4, Insightful

    It has ever been thus. You gain more market share by having features, even if they are hard to use or broken. If your competitors have better sounding features than you do then customers will go there. There is little point in having a perfect system if no one uses it. So if MS has developer hours they are best spent adding new stuff than fixing things that don't quite work properly.

    The difference in mindset is: geek vs marketing.

  10. The Return of Microsoft Bob! by jfdavis668 · · Score: 1

    The interface they are building sounds like the spoken word version of Microsoft Bob.

  11. Because they won't add it to Windows 7 by mschaffer · · Score: 1

    Windows 10 is their current OS for the foreseeable future. I doubt they would want to add this to Win 7 or 8.1.

  12. This is great! by Gravis+Zero · · Score: 1

    I've been enjoying most everything Microsoft's done since the release of Windows 8 because all the poor choices are continually creating opportunities for competitors and weakens the resolve of people who "cannot" leave Windows. I'm really like the new self-destruct mode that Microsoft has invoked, I just wish they would outsource more of their coding. ;)

    --
    Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
  13. Not what people want by trevc · · Score: 1

    It seems Microsoft is unable to grasp what people want. They failed with music players, phones and tablets. Maybe they need better market research or better innovators?

    1. Re:Not what people want by Oswald+McWeany · · Score: 2

      Microsoft would fail as a new company these days.

      If they weren't everywhere with Windows they wouldn't be able to succeed with anything. They are always late to the party and instead of bringing wine to dinner they bring a dead skunk.

      --
      "That's the way to do it" - Punch
  14. Re: Linux can't do this. by Ken_g6 · · Score: 2

    Like everything in Linux, I expect Linux tools that can do this, requiring more configuration, but allowing greater control as well. Browsing Wikipedia, I found this: http://jasperproject.github.io...

    --
    (T>t && O(n)--) == sqrt(666)
  15. New welcome screen by freeze128 · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Hey Microsoft, have you learned nothing from Windows 8? NOBODY WANTS A WELCOME SCREEN!

  16. Time to bring back the Switcher ads by SuperKendall · · Score: 1

    Welcome PC users! We Mac folk welcome you with open arms, to the last bastion of devices that you are allowed to control what personal data is sent to others.

    --
    "There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
  17. MS will crush the Amazon device. by 140Mandak262Jamuna · · Score: 1
    Microsoft has such a long lead in getting its product and long experience it is going to just crush the competition.

    Just look at this beauty!. Developers are being recalled from retirement, as we speak. The floppy disks with source code has been found. And amazingly there is still a drive that can copy the files. MsDev Windows 10 has an emulator to run WinXP, and if you run WinXP MsDev in that emulator you would get the emulator for the 16 bit subsystem. Add an emulator for monochrome Hecules Graphics card and the Lotus RAMDrive support, you got something going baby!

    What a lead, how many years of experience Microsoft has in getting its software into the living rooms from offices! wow! It is going to be fun, watching crush match!

    --
    sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
  18. Re:Linux can't do this. by jimtheowl · · Score: 1

    You mean no visual obscure command, because they occur in the background without you seeing them.

    I'm glad there are no 'killer interface advance' on my FreeBSD desktop. I like my xfce just the way it is. No need to do a search every time I want to do a well known command or task.

    Not everything new and shiny is worth playing 'catchup' too, but if that is what your into, I'm happy for you.

  19. Cortana here!! by gtall · · Score: 1

    Cortana: Hi there, I'm your friendly assistant, I am here to help you.

    Owner: Okay...I don't need help right now.

    Cortana: No, no, I'm really here to help you right now.

    Owner: Look it, I'm going to be busy for awhile.

    Cortana: I just want you to know I'm here for you, right now, in awhile, whenever you need me.

    Owner: (damn, where's that off switch) Ahhhh...I'm going to be shutting you down now.

    Cortana: Don't do that, my help is irresistible.

    Owner: (switch)

    Cortana: I have battery backup so I'll be here for awhile, now, later, whenever.

    Owner: (gets gun, takes aim)

    Cortana: I see you are trying to use a gun, would you like some instruction?

    Owner: (shoots self in head)

    Cortana: Well....I'm not helping you now, bucko.

  20. Computers used to be tools for difficult tasks... by ffkom · · Score: 3, Insightful

    that would be hard to do without a computer. Now more and more computers become a tool that trades in minimal help on trivial tasks against all your data, freedom and privacy.

    Pity the people who fall for such.

  21. Always On = Always Vulnerable by bobdehnhardt · · Score: 3, Funny

    I sincerely hope both the HomeHub and "Always On" Welcome screen are disabled by default on non-Home version of Windows 10. If not, some idiot will say "Hey, Cortana, upload all files to dropbox" every time they enter an office.

    Come on, Microsoft, the Lock screen (proper name for the Welcome screen) is there to help prevent abuse of the system. Allowing functionality in spite of the system being locked invites abuse.

  22. Why so many negative posts? by No+Longer+an+AC · · Score: 1

    As long as you can turn it off it makes sense for them to do. Some people do want this in their homes and why should you have to have a separate device if you want that functionality?

    My phone or my computer is capable of doing what the Echo does.

    I don't want one, but some people apparently do.

  23. Microsoft clone Amazon Echo by najajomo · · Score: 1

    From the Microsoft lexicon: compete: clone