They must all be gay.
Posted on 03/02/2020 9:32:53 PM PST by dayglored
Unloved assistant to smarten up its act in Microsoft 365. US only, naturally
Microsoft has jammed yet another knife into the consumer incarnation of its unloved electronic assistant, Cortana.
As the release of Windows 10 20H1 (or 2004) looms, the company snuck out a blog late on Friday letting the dozen or so customers still using the thing know that "consumer skills including music, connected home and third-party skills will no longer be available in the updated Cortana experience in Windows 10."
Cortana services in the Microsoft Launcher on Android will also be axed as a sad-faced engineer resets the "Days since a consumer product got killed off" counter back to zero.
Last year, a Microsoft staffer told The Register that the original concept of Cortana as a consumer tool pretty much died at the same time as the company's mobile dreams, and the gradual unpicking of Cortana from Windows 10 is testament to that. All pretence of a consumer play with the assistant has been stripped as Cortana settles down in the subscription world of Microsoft 365.
And a wonderful world it will be too. Customers will be able to either blather at their PCs (or use the keyboard) to retrieve upcoming appointments, set reminders or fiddle with settings. The emphasis, according to Microsoft, will be on "productivity."
Handy, because the consumer take on the tech – the Harman Kardon Invoke speaker – appears to be quietly being scrubbed from history, judging by the company's website. Still, the few who actually use the things should hopefully see good service from them as slightly dumber speakers – Cortana aside, they actually sounded pretty good.
As is so often the case with Microsoft, it'll be US (or rather those running in US English) customers who get to play with the Microsoft 365 integration first. The rest of us will get "answers from Bing and the ability to chat with Cortana" and the promise of "more productivity-based capabilities in the future". Lucky us.
In the meantime, please join us in a final farewell as another bit of Microsoft consumer tech heads into the dusty drawer of abandoned dreams, alongside the Band, the Kin, Media Center, Zune, Home Server, Windows Phone... ®
They must all be gay.
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Bob was gay, too.
She can upload my hard drive any time.
Windows 10 sucks so bad. I have to do five things to match the single action required in Windows 7.
I downloaded Windows 10 to my windows 7 laptop. It wiped out lots of good programs on it, and still thinks I live in Norway or Denmark. I am in the Ozarks.
Right after she defrags mine.
lol
Most of the developers for Cortana are gay, or at least wish they were.
Seri and Cortana are just there to suck information out of you, then spew it back in advertising.
I have never used Cortana. In all new Windows Ten installations I remove it from the taskbar immediately.
Tiles.
Who is the person who thought tiles were a good idea? Who are the people who agreed with him?
Hmm, I didn’t even know I had Cortana.
I do know about Siri and Alexa.
I keep accidentally activating Siri. Once, when I did that, I said, “Siri, go away!”
She responded, “Did I do something wrong?”
and Clippy was definitely a poofter.
I use to do Windows password resets. When a user got locked out while still online one of the indicators was an error message about Cortana when they tried to open up Explorer.
Alternatives?
Tiles are amazing for touch screen users. Some of us enjoy touch screens and tiles facilitate ease of use much better than trying to click a much smaller blade or link. Microsoft is committed to accessibility for their products. Try to think of features outside of how they’re presented to you. Many features facilitate ease of use or accessibility enhancement for the disabled and handicapped.
I hear ya about W7. I still have that and XP on a hard drive I can pop in my system but I’m on W10 now primarily.
same here!
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