Microsoft to Cortana: you’re not going out dressed in iOS or Android, young lady!
- Reference: 1596441728
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/08/03/cortana_apps_discontinued/
- Source link:
A [1]Saturday support update explained that support for third-party Cortana skills will end in September 2020. Cortana’s iOS and Android apps will suffer the same fate in “early 2021”.
Cortana’s incarnation in a Harman Kardon smart speaker will end in January 2021, too.
Microsoft has styled these decisions as “changes to some U.S. consumer-centric features and functionalities with lower usage.”
The company has also pointed out that the changes are far from the end for Cortana, as she lives on in Windows 10 and the mobile version of Outlook and Teams. Surface-branded headphones and earbuds will lose access to the current full Cortana experience, but remain able to access Cortana through Outlook mobile. However in those apps her role is limited to things like arranging meetings, plus reading mail, rather than a full “Oi, virtual person, search the web and tell me stuff I wanna know” experience.
“We’ve spent a lot of time thinking through this transition and understand that these changes may be disruptive to some of our customers,” Microsoft’s post advises, adding “We look forward to continuing to innovate on ways Cortana can help you navigate the modern workplace so you can save time and focus on the things that matter most in your day.”
And that focus on the modern workplace, Microsoft’s term for what you become after buying and imbibing Office 365, signals where Microsoft wants Cortana to go. Out with the chatty generalist, in with a voice interface for frequent tasks.
Microsoft is not the only entity to have trouble with its AI. Samsung’s Bixby is something of a digital non-entity and is rumored to be ripe for radical re-invention or even removal. Google and Amazon’s assistants have become sources of endless privacy concerns, thanks to their inclusion in low-priced smart speakers. And Apple’s Siri continues to delight and confound in equal measure. ®
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[1] https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4575625/upcoming-changes-to-cortana
[2] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Spin on it!
(Bonus points for getting the reference).
One down, three to go...
"Cortana’s incarnation in a Harman Kardon smart speaker will end"
This sort of thing is why consumers need legal redress / protection. If a device is purchased with a feature, that feature should be available for the life of the product - where "life" is not defined by the vendor (but need not be infinite).
Re: "Cortana’s incarnation in a Harman Kardon smart speaker will end"
Exactly, this is the problem you have when you try and put IoT in goods not designed for that - cars, industrial processes, speakers, white goods etc.
The products are expected to last, probably, a couple of decades and the tech stops working and either makes the product unusable or a security risk after a couple of years.
I'm still using my radio alarm from 1989. It still does its job. Our 2017 smart TV has already lost its "smarts", because Sony stopped delivering security updates last summer, so I removed it from the network as a security risk. Even worse, my daughter and her friend bought a Sony smart TV for Christmas 2018, Sony stopped updates and things, like Amazon Prime and Netflix, actually stopped working in October 2019.
We have both just stuck a FireTV Stick in the back, but that is the last time that I'll buy a smart anything. I'll buy a high-quality, non-smart device and cheap, disposable "smarts" where they are warranted. That way the high quality product will run for a decent lifetime and the smarts can simply be replaced when support stops. I'd rather replace a FireTV Stick ever 3 - 4 years than a smart TV every 18 months!
Re: "Cortana’s incarnation in a Harman Kardon smart speaker will end"
My LG TV's main "smart" function now is popping up alerts to tell me which in-built app will no longer be working.
Re: "Cortana’s incarnation in a Harman Kardon smart speaker will end"
It's rather simple.. anything that's called "smart $productname" is definitely the opposite. It's simply something that's going to be obsolete extremely quickly.
People may scoff at the fact I kicked my "smart TV" off the network and only use a normal PC hooked up to it, but I'm happy that way, it works for me, and I never need to worry about arbitrary support dates.
Meanwhile...
Amazon is pushing Alexa like there is no tomorrow if the deluge of UK TV ads are anything to go by.
Nice try Bezos but I still ain't gonna install yours or indeed any voice activated spy in my home.
Does anyone actually use these things?
Got a new Samsung phone. First thing I did was turn off Bixby and everything related to it.
Got a new Windows 10 laptop. First thing I did was turn off Cortana (and get rid of Edge, put a proper start menu, etc.).
The only thing I ever see people use Siri / Alexa for is to pee about, showing me "how cool" it is to have them sing songs or do tell stupid jokes.
Does anyone actually use them for anything that wouldn't be quicker to just tap the screen to do anyway?
Yes
They are really useful for reminders when cooking, you shout "Echo/Alexa/whatever: set timer for 15 mins", and you're done. Messy hands and all. Music is good too, "play
Basically, any number of simple tasks that are inconvenient because your hands are full or dirty.
Whether that convenience is worth having engineers listening to hopefully anonymised snippets of your private conversations or not is an exercise for the reader.
In the finest tradition of the Reg someone will point out that pencils work with dirty hands and their Nokia blockia from 1996 still gets 18 days on standby and they know the weather by looking out the window and wasn't everything better when we were 21 and could lick each others faces in public.
Re: Yes
Yes, in addition to cooking times we have weight, length conversion, internet radio, really groany jokes, occasionally the news (although Coronavirus has now made this a one note tune), and turning lights on and off (Phillips hue), very handy if you have your hands full (physically I mean).
To be honest all of your electronic devices are capable of listening to you, regardless of whether you have that function turned on or off.
So yeah, if you feel nervous about this then use 80's/90's tech (probably easily hackable) or go the Bin Laden route of getting someone to go to internet cafe's to send your emails (for all the good that did him).
To be honest if you are being watched actively by a Government or big business you probably have bigger issues than worrying about what Alexa is hearing in the average home.
Re: Yes
"use 80's/90's tech (probably easily hackable)"
No, because it's not online.
This has always been a problem with Microsoft and such products, they get released in the USA, and possibly a couple of other English speaking countries. Then their usage is compared to the global usage of their competitors and the products are canned, because they don't get used, even though they have never been globally released.
Zune - US sales low, compared to global iPod sales, product canned.
Band - US sales low, compared to FitBit and Appl Watch global sales, product canned.
Cortana - US English only on limited devices, usage low compared to global Google Assistant and Alexa usage, product canned.
What really stood out with Cortana was that it did get some international release in Windows 10, but iOS and Android were US English only, because they didn't have the back-end server infrastructure to cope with an international roll-out (that was the official excuse 3 years ago). Why would they not use the same back-end for all platforms? And, given that Microsoft has Azure, that is a pretty poor excuse.
Microsoft’s decided to restrict the roles its AI assistant Cortana is permitted to fill.
In other words, they're giving up on Cortana. And having given up they're just restricting it to the only place where there's no other choice, in the hope they can either revive it or someone else will come along with a third party product that enables them to say "Cortana, have you ever seen the film Old Yeller?"
Excellent
<< A Saturday support update explains that support for third-party Cortana skills will end in September 2020. Cortana’s iOS and Android apps will suffer the same fate in “early 2021”. >>
Excellent. A step in the right direction. Next, please remove it from Windows.
Re: Excellent
Excellent. A step in the right direction. Next, please remove it from Windows.
There, fixed it for you!
...pointed out that the changes are far from the end for Cortana...
Surely this is another indicator of the beginning of the end, though. Roll on the end of the end. Then dump these privacy invading, life harvesting "assistants" from other devices.
"Cortana - please justify your existence" and it promptly uninstalls in a puff of logic