Cortana

Microsoft is on a mission to push artificial intelligence deeper into your office life and its Office apps. In its latest effort to help improve productivity, Microsoft is unleashing Cortana onto its Outlook app to allow the digital assistant to read your emails aloud to you for a truly hands-free experience.

Microsoft’s Surface event on Wednesday showed all of us yet again that there’s always one more thing to get excited about. But there was no mention of Cortana, Microsoft's oft-forgotten voice assistant.

Another day, another Windows 10 update issue. The problem this time is that a fix rolled out for a Cortana bug has caused further issues of its own, by breaking the start menu of some users. Users have found that the update causes their start menu to stop working, with a critical error message.

Microsoft’s contractors are listening to some Skype calls and Cortana voice commands. According to a recent report published by Motherboard, some Skype calls made via Skype’s Translator feature are being recorded and sent to contractors to be reviewed as part of Skype’s translation service.

Microsoft is revealing a major face-lift to its Cortana digital assistant on Windows 10. With the release of the 20H1 update in early 2020, Cortana will feature a new chat-based UI and several other changes. Fast Ring Windows Insiders beta testers running build 18945 can enjoy the new experience.

Microsoft has recently released Cortana as a standalone app in the Microsoft Store, and by doing so it seems like the technology company is trying to save its flagship voice assistant by setting it free from Windows. Cortana needs to be more competitive and a separate app might do the trick.

Apple plans to hire 2,000 more employees for a new Seattle campus, the company announced Monday, with a significant number of those jobs focused on the Siri voice assistant and artificial intelligence. The new campus marks a major expansion right in Amazon and Microsoft's backyard.

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Over the past few years Cortana has been seeing a somewhat slow but painful death. It even will even be separated from Windows 10 search in the upcoming April 2019 Update. All that considered, here’s a few reasons why we think the voice assistant is on its way to an eventual doom.

Microsoft To-Do can help you check things off your list and get important tasks done, but it is now getting a key improvement. It was announced on January 25 that the app is picking up support for Cortana, allowing consumers to leverage the Microsoft virtual assistant to manage their reminders and tasks.

Rather than make Cortana a stand-alone digital assistant with its own ecosystem of connected speakers, Microsoft now wants to integrate Cortana into Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa. This turns Cortana into a skill that can be integrated into competing digital assistants to help Microsoft push its cloud services.

This year's results are in for Loup Ventures' annual Smart Speaker IQ test. The test, which consists of 800 annually updated questions, measures how well the digital voice assistant employed by each device understands each question and answers each question correctly. Who won? Alexa, Google Assistant, Siri, or Cortana?

Microsoft may be shifting direction on how searches are performed on Windows 10. Some Windows Insiders on the latest preview build of the OS noticed that Microsoft is splitting up Cortana and search. If this strategy is adopted, Microsoft could implement it on the Windows 10 Spring 2019 Update.

If you buy an Xbox One S or Xbox One X bundle through Amazon right now, you'll also receive a free Echo Dot. The device features integration with Xbox One through the Alexa and Cortana assistants. You can even turn on your Xbox One by asking Alexa to do so. The offer is valid only while supplies last.

Fans of the Xbox Kinect can potentially relive the benefits of the accessory. A set of new Alexa and Cortana skills allow players to control the Xbox One with their voice. Users can launch games, control the volume, and much more. These features are available now for Xbox Insiders in the United States.

Glas, built by Jonson Controls and powered by Microsoft's Cortana, Amazon Alexa, or Google Assistant, is a smart thermostat that sticks its thumb in the Nest thermostat's eye. Glas features a sleek design that includes an OLED touchscreen display, and it's now available to order for $319.

McAfee Labs reports that the latest Patch Tuesday update issued by Microsoft fixes a problem with Cortana that allowed anyone to read sensitive information at the Windows 10 lock screen and bypass the screen altogether. At the core of the issue was the file indexing process used by Windows 10.

For the time being, it may seem that the battle of the smart assistants rages only between two contenders -- Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant. But lest you forget that there are, in fact, other A.I.-based helpers in the running. A survey suggests that you certainly shouldn't count out Microsoft Cortana.

A leaked Xbox One screenshot from an upcoming build suggests that Cortana may soon have some company, with voice commands utilizing Alexa and Google Assistant devices added to the console's expanding repertoire. No official announcement has been made, but such a move has been rumored for many months.

As assistants like Alexa, Google Assistant, and Siri continue to gain ground in functionality and user numbers, Cortana has faded to the background a bit. But this may change now that Microsoft is rumored to be working on its own smart speaker. There's still no confirmation from Microsoft, though.

Microsoft shows how easy it is to summon Alexa from your Cortana-enabled Windows PC. Even though Cortana may benefit from Alexa's skills, Microsoft still needs to figure out how to make its assistant easier to access on a phone, a challenge given that Microsoft doesn't have a smartphone platform anymore.

If you're an Android user who prefers using Amazon Alexa, you're in luck. Rather than Google Assistant, you'll now be able to set Alexa as the default voice assistant on your Android phone. You're able to use Alexa to send text messages, create shopping lists, control smart home systems, and more.