Cortana

Move aside, Alexa; back off, Google Assistant. Microsoft's Cortana is here, and she wants to be the de-facto virtual assistant for busy people in their busy homes. Breaking free of the smartphone and desktop for the first time, Cortana's newest form is the Harman Kardon Invoke, a new entrant to the burgeoning smart speaker market that promises audio quality to rival true music systems along with everything from both your home and your work lives.

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What would a chat bot do in a chat app? Now butt in hopefully. But Cortana could, at your command, chat for you if needed. Of course, it won't be holding a conversation with your friend but will instead suggest things to answer back. And if you need to, you can even talk to Cortana directly. That is what Cortana is bringing to Skype users on Android and iOS, bringing the battle of AI assistants to your messaging.

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Voice-controlled smart assistants are all the rage these days. Just look back at IFA 2017 to see how many devices were proud to announce support for Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant, or Apple Siri (via HomeKit). They are admittedly pretty convenient and powerful, but those same strengths might actually be their Achilles’ heel as well. Chinese researchers have demonstrated that Alexa, Siri, Cortana, and Google Assistant can be easily told to do things without the knowledge, much less permission, of their owners. All by saying commands that no human can actually hear.

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Amazon and Microsoft have come together to make a rather surprising announcement: later this year, Cortana and Alexa will be able to talk to one another. Cortana, of course, is Microsoft's own AI assistant, and even though she may have lost a platform with the decline of Windows Phone, there's still a major push underway to make her an integral part of Windows 10 devices. With Alexa compatibility on the way, Cortana could become even more prevalent.

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With all the attention lavished on Alexa, Google Assistant, and, in a not so positive way, Bixby, it’s almost to easy to forget about Siri and, even more so, Cortana. Many might have forgotten that Microsoft just announced back in May its Cortana Skills, analogous to Alexa Skill and Assistant Actions. Which is probably why there are only 66. Actually, make that 67, now that Fitbit has joined the ranks, allowing you to get your fitness stats simply by asking Cortana to do it for you.

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One of the coolest incoming features for Windows 10 is undoubtedly Timeline. With Timeline, you'll be able to access your apps across multiple devices, effectively allowing you to jump between your Windows 10 devices quickly by being able to pick up where you left off. It's an ambitious feature to be sure, but it turns out today that it may be a little too ambitious to release when we originally thought it would.

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There's no shortage of phone assistants for Android, some more popular than others. If you've never bothered to set one up, long-pressing your smartphone's home button will result in Google Assistant popping up, and that's fine if that is what you want to use. If you're more fond of Microsoft's alternative, though, you can replace Google Assistant with Cortana as your default Android phone assistant.

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The advantage of basing your AI-powered personal assistant off an existing fictional character is that you have a ready-made visual representation of the assistant. When said fictional character takes the form of a hologram, it is almost begging to be given a real-world form. In that sense, it's almost surprising that there are so few implementations of Microsoft's Cortana as a fully functional hologram that, of course, can tell you the weather as well.

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Microsoft's vision for Cortana goes beyond sitting in a smart speaker on your kitchen counter, with the company showing off some of the ways its assistant could follow you at home and on the road. Bringing Cortana's latest enclosure, the Harmon Kardon Invoke speaker, on-stage at the BUILD 2017 opening keynote today, Microsoft showed how the agent can expand into the car. It's part of a big expansion in what developers will be able to do with Cortana themselves.

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Cortana may have only just got a standalone smart speaker to reside in, but Microsoft's Alexa rival is set to get a whole lot smarter. The next generation of talents, AI abilities, and conversational computing for Cortana is being detailed today at BUILD 2017, Microsoft's annual developer event. That includes a significant push into AI across every aspect of the software behemoth's portfolio.

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Amazon's freshly revealed Echo Show may be represent an evolution for Alexa, but Microsoft wants to take things one step further. As it turns out, Microsoft may have something in the pipeline called HomeHub, which will use Windows 10 and Cortana as the backbone. The idea is to turn Windows 10 machines into the hubs for smart home interaction, potentially giving HomeHub more functionality than Alexa or Google Home.

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The Harman Kardon speaker with Cortana has been officially announced, adding yet another smart speaker to the growing market. Unlike most of these smart speakers, which run Amazon's Alexa, the Invoke speaker utilizes Microsoft's own personal digital assistant to support voice commands and more. The speaker itself provides 360-degree audio and a cylindrical tower shape not entirely unlike the Amazon Echo's design. Two different colors will be offered, both featuring what Harman describes as a 'sleek, modern design."

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