CORTANA

CORTANA

Cortana is an intelligent personal assistant on Windows Phone 8.1. Its name comes from Cortana, the artificial intelligence character in the Halo series, with Jen Taylor, the character's voice actress, returning to voice the personal assistant's US-specific version.

Cortana is one of Windows 10’s most visible new features. Microsoft’s virtual assistant makes the leap from Windows Phone to the desktop, and there’s a lot you can do with it. It isn’t just a voice assistant either — you can also type commands and questions

Open Cortana to see information it thinks you might care about. Cortana provides a lot of passive information, too, even notifying you when you need to leave to make an appointment on time.

If you can’t use Cortana yet in your country, there’s a way to enable Cortana anywhere in the world.

Set Reminders for Times, Places, and People

Cortana has a powerful built-in reminder feature, but there’s more you can do with these reminders than simply getting a reminder at a specific time.

Use Natural Language Search

Cortana supports natural language search for files on your computer. For example, you can ask Cortana to “find pictures from August” or “find documents about Windows” to find pictures from the months of August or document files related to Windows.

Perform Calculations and Conversions

Cortana can perform quick calculations, too. Remember that you can type into the Cortana search box, too — you don’t have to speak long numbers.

You can either ask cortana for the answer to a math calculation like “324234 * 34234” or enter a unit conversion like “55 uk pounds to usd”. This works for currencies as well as other types of units.

Find Facts

Cortana uses Bing to provide direct answers to common questions. This is similar to Google’s Knowledge Graph. For example, you can ask questions like “What is the tallest building in the world?” or “Who is the president of the United States?” to get an immediate answer.

Check the Weather

Use Cortana to quickly check the weather in different locations. “Weather” will show you the weather at your current location, while “weather in [location]” will show you the weather in another city.

Get Directions

Cortana can respond with directions, too. Ask for “directions to [location]” and Cortana will open the included Windows 10 Maps app with directions to your location of choice.

Launch Programs

Cortana can launch programs for you. Just say “Launch [program name].” If you have the “Hey Cortana” voice shortcut enabled, this means you can just say “Hey Cortana, launch Google Chrome” to your PC and it will automatically open that app.

Just Chat

Like Siri, Cortana can “chat” about things and respond to silly questions with snappy answers. Ask Cortana a question like “Where’s Clippy?” or even give an instruction like “Tell me a story,” “Tell me a joke,” “Sing me a song,” or “Surprise me!”