A look at the settings Windows 10 users can manipulate for a more useful, enjoyable Cortana experience
Wouldn’t it be just grand if we could have a virtual personal assistant that took care of all of our needs, and not just keep track of scheduled appointments or weather conditions? There’s no doubt that we’re heading in that direction and Google, Apple, Microsoft, and even Amazon seem to be in a race to create the ultimate solution. Unfortunately for the other contenders, Microsoft has an advantage: Windows 10.
As previously reported, the operating system will be dished out to Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 customers for free in July, and with it will be Microsoft’s virtual assistant, Cortana. If allowed, this assistant will sit back and wait for the user to say its name; in turn, Cortana will provide the requested information. Yes, it’s just that simple.
After the initial setup, the user simply places the cursor in the search field on the taskbar to pull up Cortana’s main interface. This interface isn’t a glowing red eye like HAL 9000 from 2001: A Space Odyssey, but rather a clean menu that includes weather, national and local news for the day, along with buttons on the left for Home, Notebook, Reminders, Places, Music, Help, Settings, and Feedback options.
If enabled during the setup process, Cortana will keep an ear open at all times. This means that anytime you simply say, “Hey, Cortana” into the microphone, “she” will respond with a small “listening” window. This window will show what you are saying to Cortana, and then expand to include your virtual assistant's response.
For instance, say, “Hey Cortana, show me the weather.” These words will appear in the small window, which is essentially a visual confirmation that the message between human and AI is correct. Once the command has been accepted, Cortana will pull up the local weather and verbally dictate the current local conditions, such as temperature and cloud cover. This information can be removed by clicking the Home button.
The next button, the Notebook section, is rather large; this is where Cortana's settings are stored. The Notebook is broken down into five parts: Daily Routine, Music, News, Travel, and Weather. The latter weather aspect provides settings regarding the local weather, such as choosing a unit and turning on notifications for when there’s a weather “incident.”
Above the Weather button is the Notebook’s Travel feature, which has a switch for turning on the Trip Planner. This planner will relay information regarding a scheduled trip hours before departure, such as the status of the flight, weather conditions at the destination, and more.
Next, we have the Music section of the Notebook, which doesn’t control music stored on the hard drive but, when activated, will enable Cortana to provide information about concerts and shows by your favorite artists.
Moving on, the Notebook’s News section enables Cortana to pull up national headlines as well as the local news, and the Daily Routine section will provide traffic conditions and suggested routes. The Daily Glance settings within the Daily Routine allow Cortana to provide a quick snapshot of what’s going on in the USA, such as headlines, appointments, the weather, and so on.
The next button on the main Cortana Settings menu is Reminders, which should be self-explanatory: have Cortana remind you of an event that can be listed by Time, Place, or Person. After Reminders is Places, where users can list their favorite destinations and retrieve turn-by-turn directions. This is followed by the Music button, which will play any song and pull up relevant information associated with it.
Finally, the Settings section provides a number of switches including one to turn off Cortana. If that does happen, Microsoft warns that everything Cortana knows on the device will be erased except the Notebook settings. Users can also change their name in the Settings menu, have Cortana learn the user’s voice, and turn off Cortana’s ability to listen for “Hey Cortana.” Also listed under Settings is Bing SafeSearch settings, user tracking, privacy settings, and more.
Need a little help getting started? Cortana’s Help section will do just that. This can show you how to add an appointment, create a reminder, set an alarm, listen to music, get directions, and search the Web, as well as Windows Phone. That said, you can say, “Hey Cortana, remind me to go shopping on Thursday.” Cortana will ask what time. After that, this reminder will be pinned to the Reminder section. This is done verbally, of course, which is why Cortana is such a cool Windows 10 feature.
OK, so Cortana can do cool stuff like reminders and directions. Can Cortana sing? Yes. Can she tell jokes? Yes. Microsoft has seemingly gone out of its way to create an artificial intelligence that could live up to the fictitious HAL 9000’s expectations. Can Cortana control a spaceship? Probably not, but she can provide you with a recipe to make tasty homemade chocolate chip cookies.
“I’m named after Cortana, a character in the Halo game series on Xbox. She’s an artificial intelligence, like me,” she will say when asked about her name. Cortana is also a math whiz: just relay a problem to her and she will provide the answer within the Cortana window. Ask her what’s playing at the movies and she will bring up a list of flicks playing at your local theater.
Now, keep in mind that this hands-on with Cortana is based on Windows 10 Insider Preview Build 10130. There will likely be more changes to Cortana over the next month. Based on this build, Microsoft has a few bugs that need squishing in order to provide a smooth Cortana experience. Windows 10 required a Windows Explorer restart twice during testing for this article because Cortana couldn’t respond to verbal commands or pull up the Cortana interface.
And Cortana doesn’t always get your commands right… at least, not in the early days of use. Like a child, she doesn’t seem to have her listening ears on at times and will state that “something’s not right” and to “try again later.” The movie question was actually spoken several times before we gave up and manually typed the question into Cortana’s search field.
Regardless, Cortana is an awesome addition to Windows 10, and may bring customers on board the Windows 10 express who were previously afraid to upgrade to Windows 8/8.1. Despite the current flaws, we can’t help but be in awe of technology that was previously only seen in movies and is now camping out on our computer screens.
From maximumpc
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