Microsoft’s smart digital assistant, Cortana, is getting new updates from today. Those who are on the early stages of the Windows Insider program will receive the first insight into the new tools.
Cortana promises to get more intelligent over the time it spends with you. It learns a user’s individual preferences, and it has been offering a range of location-based reminders for a while. For example, if you want to remember buying something for dinner, you will get a reminder when you walk past a super market. This feature will also assist you with the promises that you have made in your emails. Due to overflowing mailboxes, it is very difficult to recall all the promises that you have made, hence this gimmick should definitely come in handy.
This feature is the result of the work carried out by Microsoft Research (MSR). We think that it is able to track things users say they will take over and a time-frame in which they commit to doing them, by the use of Natural language processing (NLP).
With this addition, the new Cortana feature will also help you manage your calendar appointments efficiently. For example, if someone tries to set up a meeting during a time you don’t normally work, Cortana will flag this as a potential problem and let you reschedule it, or invite you to change your alarm in case it is a meeting that you can’t avoid.
Cortana was first released for the Windows 8.1 devices as a beta product in U.S., before arriving in the U.K. and a handful of other markets.
Artificial intelligence has become quite popular these days with all the big software firms investing in making their personal assistants better. You can get access to the latest bag of tricks only if you are in the insider program. Microsoft is yet to reveal the features that they will release in the commercial release.