Microsoft's New Surface Earbuds Work With Any Virtual Assistant, Not Just Cortana (venturebeat.com) 20
At Microsoft's annual Surface press event today, the company announced the Surface Earbuds to rival Apple's AirPods and Amazon's newly announced Echo Buds. What's unique about the Surface Earbuds is that, unlike the other two wireless earphones, they can be used with Alexa, Bixby, Google Assistant, Siri, or any other competitor -- not just with Cortana. VentureBeat reports: Like the Surface Headphones, the Surface Earbuds don't do anything until you pair them. Surface Earbuds communicate over Bluetooth 5.0 with an Android, iOS, or Windows 10 device. Once paired, you can tap and hold either of the buds to trigger the default assistant on your device. To use a different virtual assistant with the Surface Earbuds, just change the default assistant on the paired device.
"Out of the box, it just works," said Surface Earbuds product lead Mohammed Samji. "On PC, it launches Cortana. On iOS, it will launch Siri, unless you've changed it. And I think it might vary depending on the distribution of Android, but all the ones I've tested, the first time I do it, Android asks me what I want as my default." Surface Earbuds still offer a better experience with Cortana (although without the "Hey Cortana" wakeword), Samji made sure to emphasize. Surface Earbuds can do everything with Cortana that the Surface Headphones can do, like chit-chat, interact with your email, check your calendar, get your daily update, and create to-dos. Samji said his team created a more streamlined flow for all this Cortana functionality. It's called Surface Audio. One of the biggest new abilities with the Surface Earbuds is gestures. "Surface Earbuds' gestures include double tap (go in and out of the call, or play/pause), swipe up and down (control volume), or even swipe forward and back (switch tracks in music, switch slides in PowerPoint)," reports VentureBeat. "Specifically on Android, there's also a triple tap to launch Spotify under your phone's lockscreen -- you can triple-tap again to have Spotify to choose another song using its ML."
"Out of the box, it just works," said Surface Earbuds product lead Mohammed Samji. "On PC, it launches Cortana. On iOS, it will launch Siri, unless you've changed it. And I think it might vary depending on the distribution of Android, but all the ones I've tested, the first time I do it, Android asks me what I want as my default." Surface Earbuds still offer a better experience with Cortana (although without the "Hey Cortana" wakeword), Samji made sure to emphasize. Surface Earbuds can do everything with Cortana that the Surface Headphones can do, like chit-chat, interact with your email, check your calendar, get your daily update, and create to-dos. Samji said his team created a more streamlined flow for all this Cortana functionality. It's called Surface Audio. One of the biggest new abilities with the Surface Earbuds is gestures. "Surface Earbuds' gestures include double tap (go in and out of the call, or play/pause), swipe up and down (control volume), or even swipe forward and back (switch tracks in music, switch slides in PowerPoint)," reports VentureBeat. "Specifically on Android, there's also a triple tap to launch Spotify under your phone's lockscreen -- you can triple-tap again to have Spotify to choose another song using its ML."
Five Microsoft Stories (Score:4, Insightful)
Five independent Microsoft product announcements on the front page of Slashdot in one day.
Hope they paid well for all that publicity.
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I won't believe it until the specs include "Earbuds will evaporate in 12 months if a new annual subscription is paid."
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I've worked about 20 Microsoft contract jobs; each division is run like a different company. Some are fun (Hardware), some are laid back (Office), some are insane bureaucracy (Windows team I literally had 6 bosses to report to, spread across 3 buildings...), Some are high stress (SQL), Some are just insane (Visual Studio, I was fired for filing too many bugs, because "You are making the FTEs look bad")
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Microsoft's brave new world (Score:3)
Wow ... (Score:2)
My HiFi speakers and subwoofer work with AM radio. News at 11 ...
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Indeed, compatibility is not a new thing, but it is refreshing to see a vendor in this day and age opt for following a standard that works for everything instead of a proprietary way of doing things that only works with their own version.
what a time to be alive (Score:2)
who would have ever thought that MS would be the company releasing something that unites all those services?
next thing you know they'll start supporting open source, ha, that would be the day...
Dark times (Score:3)
Pretty dark times we live in when a headset working on different platforms is worthy of a press release. Maybe someday we'll re-achieve the compatibility of the 1970s, but it may be beyond the powers of most of today's tech giants.
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Pretty dark times we live in when a headset working on different platforms is worthy of a press release. Maybe someday we'll re-achieve the compatibility of the 1970s, but it may be beyond the powers of most of today's tech giants.
They had voice assistants in the 1970's?
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They had them the only place they belong: Cheesy sci-fi movies.
On a serious note though, yes, the radios did have a power button and a tuning knob. They responded faster than Alexa. And they weren't bugged by the CIA by default, that only happened to suspected KGB agents.
How to install and activate ESPN on Roku? (Score:1)
How to install and activate ESPN on Roku? (Score:1)
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The purpose of these earbuds is to convey a "feeling" or a "product experience". Or more to the point - to separate a sucker from his money. Personally, I'm waiting until they re-release normal headphones as the "analog audiophile version" for $598 - by Dr. Dre.
Just kidding, I bought some studio monitors at the pawn shop for under $100. I won't need to spend another cent on speakers/headphones for a couple decades, barring any accidents. But I mean, the target market here are guys that let Jeff Bezos and Ti