One of the beautiful features of Cortana is that it is smart enough to recognize natural language. I understand that people with accents might have to repeat things, but all the instructions can be given in normal sentences. "Send an e-mail to Mary" is the classic example that shows some of the AI behind the Cortana core. It knows what e-mail is and what your default client app is. It also looks for "Mary" in your contact information and will set up the headers automatically for you. You don't have to teach Cortana any of this. To be fair I will say that I'm not entirely satisfied with the fact Cortana uses Bing for a search engine and Edge as a browser. Both make mistakes. While neither of those two apps are up to MY standards but they are integrated into Windows 10.
I don't know exactly when voice recognition was brought into Windows but it has been there a long time as part of the "ease of access" feature. High contrast desktops and the like are also available for people with special needs.
Windows 10 ... again
Re: Windows 10 ... again
The frau uses voice commands when searching for something on-line using her Schmartz-Fone, it is fairly accurate too.
I'm not fond of Bing either, but they do seem to find exactly what you want better than the rest, and on the first try.
What I hate is when you try to find something specific and search engines give you everything but what you asked for.
I'm always finding myself typing the minus sign to remove something they displayed instead of what I asked for.
Local Dog Walking Park -Preparation-H -Pet Motels -Parking Garages -Treadmills -Aluminum Walkers -Suppositories
You get the idea!
I'm not fond of Bing either, but they do seem to find exactly what you want better than the rest, and on the first try.
What I hate is when you try to find something specific and search engines give you everything but what you asked for.
I'm always finding myself typing the minus sign to remove something they displayed instead of what I asked for.
Local Dog Walking Park -Preparation-H -Pet Motels -Parking Garages -Treadmills -Aluminum Walkers -Suppositories
You get the idea!
-
Icey
Re: Windows 10 ... again
Thank you Yogi.
I don't like IE at all, and don't use Chrome very often. Firefox does for me at the moment, but I might eventually use Edge of course.
The assistance for those with physical or special needs is very welcome for a lot of people, but more needs to be done. You'd be surprised if you knew how many folk in the UK still aren't online, and who don't know what's available. Me, for instance! : )
Gary, I'm no expert as you know, but it's often HOW you enter your search which brings up the desired results. As a perfect example, one of my sisters was searching for a ceramic dimpled mug the other day, to give as a Christmas present. After hitting a brick wall, she finally typed in something which produced 2 places in the UK which sold them. However, one was out of stock, and they weren't expecting any further supplies in, and the other site turned out to be no good at all. I forget how I entered words into the search box, but I managed to find one for her. It'd previously seemed impossible to locate a site which offered these mugs now, but with a bit of adjustment of the wording, we got it right. : )
I don't like IE at all, and don't use Chrome very often. Firefox does for me at the moment, but I might eventually use Edge of course.
The assistance for those with physical or special needs is very welcome for a lot of people, but more needs to be done. You'd be surprised if you knew how many folk in the UK still aren't online, and who don't know what's available. Me, for instance! : )
Gary, I'm no expert as you know, but it's often HOW you enter your search which brings up the desired results. As a perfect example, one of my sisters was searching for a ceramic dimpled mug the other day, to give as a Christmas present. After hitting a brick wall, she finally typed in something which produced 2 places in the UK which sold them. However, one was out of stock, and they weren't expecting any further supplies in, and the other site turned out to be no good at all. I forget how I entered words into the search box, but I managed to find one for her. It'd previously seemed impossible to locate a site which offered these mugs now, but with a bit of adjustment of the wording, we got it right. : )
Re: Windows 10 ... again
What irks me the most is when search engines totally ignore what you entered and show you something else entirely.
Sometimes it asks "Did You Mean?" But other times it does not put that line and shows you exactly what it wants to.
Try the exact same word a couple of hours later and it gives only info on the word you entered. Why is that?
Sometimes it asks "Did You Mean?" But other times it does not put that line and shows you exactly what it wants to.
Try the exact same word a couple of hours later and it gives only info on the word you entered. Why is that?
Re: Windows 10 ... again
I don't know about Bing, but Google makes a huge effort to give you relevant results in your searches. That may not mean what you think it means. Google knows who you are, where you live, how many different browsers you use, what you have searched for in the past, and a lot more. Because it knows so much about you, it can anticipate what you would want to know. You and I would get two different lists if we both searched the same exact keywords because our profiles with Google are different. Makes sense.
If you do things to stop your identity and Internet behavior from being known (think Ad Blocker and blocking cookies here as examples) then Google has no meaningful profile for you. Thus you get the generic results a person would get if it was the first time every s/he did a Google search. Privacy is a good thing, but there are times when it is counterproductive.
If you do things to stop your identity and Internet behavior from being known (think Ad Blocker and blocking cookies here as examples) then Google has no meaningful profile for you. Thus you get the generic results a person would get if it was the first time every s/he did a Google search. Privacy is a good thing, but there are times when it is counterproductive.
Re: Windows 10 ... again
I use Ghostery to block all cookies except for three widgets I allow.
When I need a widget somewhere, I allow it for that session only.
One really annoying one which has popped up lately on small private websites is "Google AJAX Search API."
I think it comes from the Google Web Designers Toolbox some folks use.
When you go to their website, any page with that on it only displays a white screen. If they have links on the page, as you move your mouse around, they will appear in the URL bar, and clicking on them takes you to another white page.
Because there are usually three, five or more tracking cookies on Template driven free websites, it took me a while to figure out which of these cookies was the culprit causing the white mask to be placed over their web pages.
There's no reason for a small personal web page to have tracking cookies at all. They can use a counter at their end, or even a logging program to see who visited. I'm doing them a favor by visiting their website, and don't need them loading garbage on my computer, when they can store the same info on their own computer instead of mine.
When I need a widget somewhere, I allow it for that session only.
One really annoying one which has popped up lately on small private websites is "Google AJAX Search API."
I think it comes from the Google Web Designers Toolbox some folks use.
When you go to their website, any page with that on it only displays a white screen. If they have links on the page, as you move your mouse around, they will appear in the URL bar, and clicking on them takes you to another white page.
Because there are usually three, five or more tracking cookies on Template driven free websites, it took me a while to figure out which of these cookies was the culprit causing the white mask to be placed over their web pages.
There's no reason for a small personal web page to have tracking cookies at all. They can use a counter at their end, or even a logging program to see who visited. I'm doing them a favor by visiting their website, and don't need them loading garbage on my computer, when they can store the same info on their own computer instead of mine.