Cortana is here to help in upcoming builds of Windows 10

By Dave LeClair January 21, 2015

microsoft announces cortana support windows 10 v2

Microsoft is holding its Windows event today, and one of the biggest announcements was support for Cortana on Windows 10. Microsoft is aiming to shake up the way people interact with their PCs by allowing the same style of natural voice commands as users are accustomed to on Windows phones.

Microsoft’s Joe Belfiore offered demos of Windows 10’s Cortana on stage, and he promised it will function like a “personal digital assistant.” Like on Windows Phone, it will remember things about the user in its Notebook, where users configure options.

Of course, Microsoft is promising that it won’t just be bringing the Windows Phone experience to PCs, but rather it is tweaking it to allow it to bring an optimal experience to the platform. Belfiore went on to demo some of Cortana’s functions on stage, saying, “Hey Cortana, show me PowerPoint slides about the charity auction.” It then searched through OneDrive, OneDrive for Business, and the local drive to find the requested files.

Another demo showed off Cortana’s ability to detect some photo metadata and file types, making it possible to ask for photos from a certain month.

Cortana can also access dictation features. Users can tell it to send an email to someone, and then dictate the text. Dictation isn’t a new Windows feature, but doing it through Cortana could streamline the process a bit, and it will let users access it without minimizing what they are currently using.

Users can also interact with Cortana via their keyboard if voice commands aren’t their thing. The same search commands work, but it provides an alternate way to interact with the feature.

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Dave LeClair has been writing about tech and gaming since 2007. He's covered events, hosted podcasts, created videos, and…

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