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Microsoft unveils Windows Phone 8.1 with personal assistant Cortana

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Re: Microsoft unveils Windows Phone 8.1 with personal assistant Cortana

#81

Post by JTon »

johnchristopher wrote: post #28
JTon wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's a fascinating move on Microsoft's part to integrate a video game character into a users day-to-day reality. I can imagine some nostalgia fueled sales happening as a result. But moreover, I can't help but be reminded of the movie Her. Where the lines between our physical reality and our digital reality start to blur

> But moreover, I can't help but be reminded of the movie Her. Where the lines between our physical reality and our digital reality start to blur That's because it's a fallacy from the start. What happens on-line, what's digital, is as real as anything else. It's a mental dead end to think there are two separate things.

Point taken, but I'm still not entirely convinced. I agree that what happens online is just as real. But today, online is still feels like a separate space. It's like opening a window (our devices may literally represent this window but I'm using the term as analogy). I think "blurring the lines" has to do with removing the window from the equation.

Re: Microsoft unveils Windows Phone 8.1 with personal assistant Cortana

#82

Post by bananas »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #20
sroerick wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting, as well, that Microsoft wrote a love story between Cortana and Master Chief.

They were just ahead of their time: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Her_(film)

Huh no.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_Dreams_(film)

Re: Microsoft unveils Windows Phone 8.1 with personal assistant Cortana

#84

Post by bananas »

m_mueller wrote: post #13

- How well can it handle natural language, compared to Siri? - Can it handle an interaction such as: -- "Michael, you've got a new message from Paul" -- "Read it for me" -- 'Ok, Paul wrote: "Where should we meet today?"' -- "Answer with "in the Starbucks, at noon as we discussed". -- 'Ok, here is what I understood: "In the Starbucks, at noon as we discussed". Shall I send it? -- "yes" -- "Ok, your reply has been sent…

Actually my windows phone 8 device (currently a circa 2013 820) isn't far off that already. Not joking. It goes:

1. Hold down start for 2-3 seconds

2. Say "Send text to Joe Bloggs"

3. Wait a couple of seconds for it to work it out.

4. Say your message. It gets this right nearly 100% of the time.

5. Asks you if that's ok or do you want to add some more

6. Say yes and it sends it.

It has an option to read and dictate texts to you as well but I've never used it as I think that would annoy me. Might go and play with it now.

You can do a fair bit with it. It can find a pizza place locally and call it without any trouble (my main use case :-)

Re: Microsoft unveils Windows Phone 8.1 with personal assistant Cortana

#85

Post by michaelcullina »

mjgoeke wrote: post #71
millstone wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nevertheless it's hard not to notice that the first word appears to be "tits". Is there a typesetting term for that, like keming?

"kerning"... but (meta) if you read it in an improperly kerned font it probably looking like "keming"

nice!

Re: Microsoft unveils Windows Phone 8.1 with personal assistant Cortana

#87

Post by tcas »

ctz wrote: post #79
sigkill wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So this is one thing that puzzles me. Why can't phones have modular drivers like a PC? Phones of today are way more powerful than PC of the past, but it seems that manufacturers still want to keep an appliance like structure for the phone. In my ideal world, I'd download (say) Android 4.4 and install it on my phone. After that, I'd hunt around, download and install the drivers for my phone like mic, camera, gyro, etc…

Historically a huge amount of effort went into making PC hardware enumerable at runtime and hotpluggable: BIOS, then ISA PnP, then PCI/PCIe, and ACPI. eg. There are BIOS functions dedicated to telling you, in no uncertain terms, what RAM you have and the addresses it appears at. ARM's architecture is still quite firmly stuck with the embedded approach where you get your memory map and peripheral availability at compi…

Additionally, device tree support in the Linux kernel allows many board specific ports to be packaged onto a single kernel, and the bootloader specify which peripherals and their addresses and features are there. Still nowhere near as powerful as ACPI though.

Re: Microsoft unveils Windows Phone 8.1 with personal assistant Cortana

#88

Post by bskap »

stusmall wrote: post #53
JonFish85 wrote: post #47

What baffles me is why the hell Microsoft didn't follow Apple's route of controlling their own distribution? Now Windows Mobile users have to figure out when their network is going to distribute the update[1]? That is hideous from a user standpoint. Microsoft has the money to convince the carriers, and probably a lot of weight as well. Why wouldn't they avoid that nightmare? Granted I don't have a windows phone so it…

I thought that was part of the deal with Windows phone. I thought they would be more on the Apple side of supporting updates on old hardware than the madness of Android. I don't seen any mention in that article about any of their current support phones being left behind. Did I skim past it?

All of the phones are getting updated. The issue is that Microsoft/Nokia/whoever else is involved doesn't have the clout that Apple does with the carriers, so even though the update has already been finished and tested thoroughly by Microsoft, you'll have to wait until the carrier does their own testing and approves it in order for the update to get pushed to everyone's phones. And that can take several months.

Re: Microsoft unveils Windows Phone 8.1 with personal assistant Cortana

#89

Post by ryanburk »

mjgoeke wrote: post #71
millstone wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nevertheless it's hard not to notice that the first word appears to be "tits". Is there a typesetting term for that, like keming?

"kerning"... but (meta) if you read it in an improperly kerned font it probably looking like "keming"

epic.

Re: Microsoft unveils Windows Phone 8.1 with personal assistant Cortana

#90

Post by veidr »

baddox wrote: post #48
JTon wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's a fascinating move on Microsoft's part to integrate a video game character into a users day-to-day reality. I can imagine some nostalgia fueled sales happening as a result. But moreover, I can't help but be reminded of the movie Her. Where the lines between our physical reality and our digital reality start to blur

The reference to Her is especially relevant, since in the Halo series Cortana was clearly designed for sex appeal, and romantic tension between Master Chief (the player character) and Cortana was strongly implied.

Yeah that seems kinda edgy, epecially for Microsoft, long one of the blandest companies in tech.

Not being familiar with the Halo games, I did an image search for "Cortana" -- and while not exactly NSFW, I did immediately close the window, haha:

https://www.google.com/search?q=cortana&client=safari&rls=en...

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