Microsoft is Separating Cortana From Search in Windows 10 (theverge.com) 86
Microsoft is making some big changes to Cortana in Windows 10. The company intends to decouple search and Cortana in the Windows 10 taskbar, allowing voice queries to be handled separately to typing in a search box to find documents and files. From a report: This change will be implemented in the next major Windows 10 update, currently scheduled for April. Windows 10 will direct you towards an built-in search experience for text queries, while Cortana will exist for voice queries instead of them both bundled together. "This will enable each experience to innovate independently to best serve their target audiences and use cases," explains Dona Sarkar, Microsoft's Windows Insider chief. "This change is one of several we've made throughout this release to improve your experience in this space, including updating the search landing page design, enhancing your search results, and integrating Microsoft To-Do with Cortana."
So, it will still be required (Score:5, Insightful)
But you'll have greater hope that it can be removed completely.
It's so much more satisfying to crush people's hope right after you increase it....
Re: So, it will still be required (Score:2)
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One to listen to your search queries and the other one to just 'LISTEN', always and everyone knows it.
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Half way there (Score:2)
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I use the dictionary...
It does, but you can wait 5-10 years before needing a new one. They keep creating words.
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Cortana = Clippy (Score:3)
'Hi, Would you like me to search the internet instead of your desktop for your Word File?'
Re:Cortana = Clippy (Score:4, Insightful)
I can't even get most built in Windows programs to show up before we results. Most of which are actually in my start menu. On top of that, I have an SSD, so the web results come up after I've started to press the enter key on the result I actually want only to see it get replaced by a web result and open a browser.
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How did you get her to ASK? I'd take being given a choice again as a step in the right direction!
Windows 10 has a different audience now. (Score:5, Insightful)
This is something I don't think Microsoft really gets.
The Average person don't need PC's anymore. Most of their computing experience can be done with a phone or tablet.
For the people who do need PC's need them for real work.
Microsoft is continuously making the UI meant for tablet and home users, while frustrating people who need to do real work. When I am on a PC, I am expecting to want to use multiple apps at the same time, take advantage of the big screen to have all the apps available visible and usable at once. I have a full keyboard, I am going to want to use it as much as possible, also I will still have a mouse or a pointer, the work layout doesn't allow for touch screen to be all that useful.
Oddly enough, for me, I wish all the major OS's were not Windows (as in the UI methodology) based or full screen App. But had a good Frame type interface, where I can layout all my apps, resize the content where they are usable, but may be smaller then designed. Windows just get messy. and full screen, is just unproductive.
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Yeah, Gnome is the first thing I get rid of when configuring Linux. Cinnamon is much more usable.
But speaking of Windows audience, I was thinking about the Windows story recently where Microsoft wants to reserve 7GB of hard disk space just for updates. I'd be willing to bet that internally XBox does something like that, which makes me thing they may be making Windows on the desktop more like a gaming console from a "user control" standpoint. The forced updates sure point in that direction as well. They
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Check for space before downloading the update, allocate a file the required size and use it as an archive file to store the temporary files inside.
Boom
Storage isn't going to waste 90% of the time, updates won't fail with no disk space.
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This is something I don't think Microsoft really gets.
*Proceeds to write a list of things that user thinks is missing that Windows 10 still has*
Seriously just because you can swipe from the right to get up an action center, or long touch the screen to bring up a menu that is more spaced than when you right click doesn't mean the OS is any less keyboard and mouse driven.
Your list of complaints look perfectly served by Windows 10.
*posted from a windows 10 PC using a keyboard and mouse while thoroughly confused about what it is you're complaining about.
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Re: Completely (Score:1)
Turning off the "Allow apps to run in the background" setting stops search from working
Re: Completely (Score:1)
Not sure why this got posted here, I replied to a completely different post!
Spay Cortana (Score:4, Informative)
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If you have turned off the "Allow apps to run in the background" setting in Windows, it stops search from working
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Wow. Your IT administrators must be incompetent.
In other news windows key + search still works just fine and explorer search has worked as good as it always has. Since it's safe to assume your entire work population didn't suddenly get stupid, maybe it's time to replace your IT staff.
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Yay! (Score:1)
Windows 7 expanded the search menu so that most things that I used to use win+r for, I can do just with win. And that search is more forgiving, in case I can't remember that computer management is "compmgmt.msc" or system restore is "rstrui,exe" I can type win+"restore" and it finds "system restore" for me. That was super helpful. But when it started giving me Bing results, it became useless again.
This same issue happens with the combined search/URL bars in browsers. I type in "server1427north" because
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if you type the "http://" part it won't do a search (YMMV, only tested in Chrome 71)
Extras (Score:4, Insightful)
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Why? It's not like those are marketable features.
Microsoft is a warzone (Score:2)
There are level 64 managers or whatever they are called, who are the top PHBs in charge of their bit of the product, and the assiduously build their empires within the company. In most other companies, these will build teams and fight for head count, budget etc. But in Microsoft they get a bit of the revenue generated by their pet piece of the product.
Do these people ever listen to themselves? (Score:5, Insightful)
WTF does that even mean? Can we create a mandatory post-MBA bootcamp to beat this out of them?
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Translation: An one-size-fits-all jack-of-all-trades master-of-none wasn't working as well as we thought, plus everyone bitched about it being so hard to disable and the constant excessive internet bandwidth usage, so we went back to domain specific searching that gives better search results by breaking up the bloat into smaller apps that function better and faster.
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Also that translation was extremely generous. It implies the speaker or anyone connected to her understood the implications of the statement in those terms.
It also didn't characterise the approach as 'our attempt to dictate how people will use our systems to match an extremely impractical vision bill gates had about voice controls in the 90s, after too many shrimp cocktails and a chance meeting with James Doohan...'
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Undoing a lobotomy is hard.
I don't want cortana (Score:3)
I don't want any trendy, pop culture stuff .. reliably
I don't want to follow fashion
I want a reliable operating system that does what I need
Yawn (Score:5, Insightful)
Wake me up when they separate all of the creepy malware from Windows 10.
Oh. Thank. God. (Score:2)
That was pretty much it. The further away I can get from Cortana, the better.
One more year (Score:4, Interesting)
Support for Win7 runs out in a year. I hope they pick up speed, if they continue at that pace, Win10 will not be ready for use by the time Win7 bites the dust.
Cortana may still have a chance (Score:3)
Right now there are three:
Google "we know who you are, where you are and have been, what you search for, what you shop for, every website you visit and which pages, how long you spend there, everything. We don't just know everything you like including porn, we know what kind of porn you don't realize you like. We're going to use all of this to target ads at you. Oh, and now we're getting you to add our microphones to your home even without using your phone." If you're on an iPhone they may know slightly less about your physical movements.
Amazon's Alexa "We may not know as much about where you are, but we know everything you buy because even if you didn't buy it through us you looked at our reviews of it. We've had our voice assistants in your home for years now, they do all kinds of things, oh, and by the way now we're getting into advertising as the third largest online ad platform (for now) with better conversion rates than Google or Facebook. Oh, and would you like to get free shipping with that? Have you met Prime?"
Apple's Siri "If you've bought into our high-profit-margin phones and tablets you can do some things with voice recognition, but we don't do as much or as well as the other two. On the upside we're much better about respecting your privacy!"
So right now the voice assistant universe is pretty much covered by "creepy AF," "creepy and selly AF" and "not as good but hey isn't that a nice thousand dollar phone?" I'm pretty sure there's space in there if Microsoft wants to carve out its own niche if they handle it well.
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If you look at the field of "voice assistants" Cortana may still have a chance over time.
Right now there are three:
Google "we know who you are, where you are and have been, what you search for, what you shop for, every website you visit and which pages, how long you spend there, everything. We don't just know everything you like including porn, we know what kind of porn you don't realize you like. We're going to use all of this to target ads at you. Oh, and now we're getting you to add our microphones to your home even without using your phone." If you're on an iPhone they may know slightly less about your physical movements.
Amazon's Alexa "We may not know as much about where you are, but we know everything you buy because even if you didn't buy it through us you looked at our reviews of it. We've had our voice assistants in your home for years now, they do all kinds of things, oh, and by the way now we're getting into advertising as the third largest online ad platform (for now) with better conversion rates than Google or Facebook. Oh, and would you like to get free shipping with that? Have you met Prime?"
Apple's Siri "If you've bought into our high-profit-margin phones and tablets you can do some things with voice recognition, but we don't do as much or as well as the other two. On the upside we're much better about
hiding the fact that we've no respect for your privacy!"
So right now the voice assistant universe is pretty much covered by "creepy AF," "creepy and selly AF" and "not as good but hey isn't that a nice thousand dollar phone?" I'm pretty sure there's space in there if Microsoft wants to carve out its own niche if they handle it well.
TFTFY.
Apple are just as big on selling your personal data as Google, Amazon and Microsoft... they're just less open and honest about it. If you believe otherwise, I've a bridge to sell you.
Thank you Microsoft (Score:2)
Microsoft Search (Score:2)