Cortana on Windows 10 is all talk, no apps shun, says Microsoft

So is the privacy agreement going to be any better then Googles?

Will developers take up this opportunity?

I think the greater question should be, "will hackers take up this opportunity?" I would like to know what the security implications are of this cross-app development.

If they promise to make it work for cars they've got my interest.

i hate with a passion how dumb Google voice is where even simple functions like dictating a text is all but impossible (the damn thing won't read it back to you it instead wants you to read it. *face palm*) so if it actually works with more than just voice dialing and its smart enough to read back you it'd get my interest.

Certainly possible

"A Cortana app may also come to iOS and Android, though not necessarily with the same level of integration and extensibility."

The level of integration in Android *could* be pretty high; it could register as a speech-recognition engine and whatever apps already support voice recognition would use it (although this wouldn't include much in terms of actual integration, just an alternate voice recognition engine).

Android also supports having your app check for the existence of, say, microsoft.cortana.register, if it exists calling it to register either a callback or a interprocess communications ID number. (Either so you can use Cortana in your app, or if your app handles appointments or something, to tell Cortana this.) Then (if you want to use Cortana in your app), when someone pushes "the cortana button" in your app, you could call (say) microsoft.cortana.process and have cortana get the result to you by either calling your callback code or sending an interprocess communications message to your process. Some Android apps are pretty monolithic, but Android fully supports calling bits and bobs of your app from another app (with the option of the programmer disabling this availability if your app wasn't designed with this in mind, to avoid security or reliability issues.)

Don't get me wrong, I can't speculate if Microsoft will make a fully-integrated Cortana for Android or not; but the Android design makes it relatively easy to do if they wish.

Cortana, Cortana, everywhere...

So....when my Xbox eventually (I'm not in the US so I don't get these things that early) gets Cortana, and my Phone has Cortana, and my PC has Cortana...will there then be a microphone device that processes all Cortana requests and sends them to the relative device? I'm dreading asking Cortana to do something and watch half my living room suddenly go nuts.

Also, can we PLEASE use different names for the service. I'll admit I'm not a massive Halo fan, although I've enjoyed some of the games, but that's irrelevant. I want to be able to call up Zen to do one thing, ORAC to do another, etc... (yes, it's been my dream since I was tiny to have a Zen of my own (Blakes 7 reference, for the kids).