Cortana gets new features in Windows 10 Build 10565, currently seeded to Windows Insider testers, including a load of new features and enhancements—one of which is a way to make it easier to message your friends.
WInBeta has found the new build will give Cortana the ability to send text messages via SMS. You can send texts either by speaking them to Cortana on your PC or by typing them, and it seems easy enough to do. This feature has been available on Windows Phone 8.1 for some time now (and from experience with my Lumia 830, it works quite well).
Cortana learns a few other tricks in this build: If you bought tickets to a movie or other event online, Cortana will pull information from the confirmation email you received and set up a reminder that’ll appear two hours before the event—it’ll even provide driving directions.
Build 10565 also provides a few enhancements to the Edge browser, new right-click contextual menus for Start menu items, some UI tweaks, and more. Microsoft hasn’t given a release date for when the general public will see these new features, so if you aren’t a Windows Insider, you’ll need to wait.
This comes days after Google announced it has removed the ‘OK Google’ voice commands from the Chrome browser. Only time will tell who made the right choice – I love the voice activated features on my WinPhone, but I can’t say I’d use similar workflows while sitting at my desktop. The Cortana ecosystem appears to be working well though – after trying both Siri and Cortana, I’ve found Cortana to recognise my (NZ/UK) accent much better than Siri, and search results tend to be better.
[mks_separator style=”blank” height=”2″]
Thoughts? Discuss them in the forum.
