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The only new feature I'd like for Cortana is an uninstaller.

Yes please

Never seen the point of Cortana. Or, indeed, any voice assistant on a PC.. While it undoubtedly is handy to be able to should "Hey Cortana", "hey Siri" or whatever else to ask to get something done, particularly if you are busy doing something else, I don't personally find that I need to do things that urgently that regularly. Certainly not regularly enough that it justifies having a device that records everything going on around it, and uploads that data to a data centre that may or may not be secure.

Yes, it's nice to be able to play a song, change channel or watch media, but I can do that with various remote controls, or apps on my phone (which is something I have on me most of the time). or my watch (which I have on me all the time). If I need to use my PC, I am likely near enough that I can use the keyboard, mouse and screen.

As for adding voice control to kitchen appliances. I really can't see the point of that. Beyond turning on a slow cooker or device you have already loaded (such as a dishwasher or washing machine), there isn't really anything you can do remotely with a kitchen appliance that doesn't require you to be there to put something in or take something out.

The TLDR is that I think we are using voice assistants too much, and I would argue we certainly don't need them on PCs..

for the first talky toaster

Ahhh! So you must be a waffle man....

Im a busy user of my google assistant - TV, Lights, Vacuum, zoned heating, remote controls, device in every room, in the car, etc and I love the simplicity... i run out of anything, i just tell google to add it to my shopping and my fleshy assistant will then collect that on the next shopping run, dimming the lights or turning everything off when I go out, adjusting the temperature in any room or shuttin off the lights in the summer house when the kids forget!

but... the few times i have tried using an assistant on a computer i feel daft! its wierd! much like voice calling on a computer, it just feels wrong.

the idea of extending search accross local, network and cloudy file repositories I'll take that, but id rather do that by tyoing into a search box.

I know it'll get written off as paranoia, but one day someone like Amazon or Google are going to get compromised and then these things are going to work against you - being in your home, in control of items that cost you money / could cause damage, and accepting instructions from the Internet.

Banks get compromised. Governments get compromised. Nuclear power stations get compromised. And you're plugging your home network into Google via an Internet cable.

Everyone's paranoid about "yes, but what if someone gets into the nuclear reactor" and at no point considers that doing that is orders of magnitude more difficult than someone at Amazon sending a rogue command to your Alexa.

I think we'll end up waiting for a literal example - when some major ISP has its entire web logs for a politician aired to the public, or someone sends a prank command to every Alexa in the country, or your Google search history is featured on the ransomware emails for real - before we actually learn or do anything about it, however.

' in their SharePoint or OneDrive for Business storage'

Does it work with Dropbox?

Can you imagine working in an office with everyone using voice commands?

Hey Cortana, Del C:*.*

"Hey Cortana! delete my pictures confirm , okay?."

When you start using anything less than 100% accurate, in-context voice, it's really difficult to not fall foul of some quite obvious problems.

And that's before you consider that people are actively crafting phrases that sound nothing like the commands but activate the commands because the voice recognition is so poor that it can't distinguish them.

https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2020/07/uncovered-1000-phrases-that-incorrectly-trigger-alexa-siri-and-google-assistant/

Say "I don't know anything about the " and it'll trigger Alexa to start listening, for example.

I chopped off her head, put a stake through her heart, and buried the body and the head at separate crossroads. And salted down the graves. Holy water, silver, and cold iron were also deployed, as were crucifixes, siddurs, and copies of the Quran, just to be certain. The demon’s dead and gone forever.

Did the same on my systems although sometimes during the night (usually after a Windows update) I can see the ground on top of her grave moving, like some zombie is trying to get out from the grave. I think I'll add a concrete slab on top of it for extra safety.

Well that's your problem right there... salting down the graves just seems to bring 'em back to life.

Sodding Cortana has arrived from nowhere - you, probably - and now offers "helpful" advice on a daily basis as an email into Outlook.

Useful things like suggesting I might be able to get some work done, sorry, - I might have a "focus opportunity", between the meetings scheduled at 1-2pm and 4pm.

Turns out you can't block sender cortana@microsoft.com, as that would clearly be a typing error, and Outlook fixes it for you.

Why can't they leave stuff the fuck alone? - or at least provide an opt-in-to-whatever-random-bollocks-your-shit-eating-marketroids-pull-out-of-their-arses-next.

"Hey Siri" now elucidates a grunt and flashing icon, almost like Apple saying, "WTF do you want this time? At least Cortana appears to benefit from incompetent programming.

Microsoft just write off Cortana - just like Samsung and Bixby - both crap

Write Cortana off, useless waste of resources, and get on with providing a reliable OS

Oh, while your at it write off Bing, equally useless